It was supposed to be more fun. I was going into college thinking that freshman year is supposed to be the best year of your life. I had the highest expectations for the upcoming 10 months. But what followed was not what I had expected. No doubt freshman year was incredibly more fun than all of high school was. But despite the step up, it still did not live up to my expectations.

The academic aspect of freshman year was about as difficult as I had expected. I was able to somewhat coast through courses, doing weeks worth of work the night before a test and getting an A in the class. The classes that freshman take are no doubt the easiest ones and that is something that I am sure I will miss when senior year comes around and I have to take Econ 453, but there are other things besides academics that influence the overall quality of the school year.

Early this spring, I made a mistake that would entirely ruin my second semester and arguably entire year. I had been playing basketball in the Turner Center as I had done frequently all year long, when I took one bad step and my knee buckled. I fell to the ground for what seemed like forever and immediately went to the hospital. As it turns out, I tore both my ACL and my meniscus in my right knee. I knew this would spell disaster for the school year.

If you’ve ever had to get around on crutches, then you know I am telling the truth when I say it is one of the most difficult, inconvenient, and frustrating things I can imagine. I remember the very day after I tore it, I did not think that crutching from Burns hall to Lamar would be too bad. It took me 25 minutes and I was drenched in sweat by the time I got here. This had become a daily thing for me to get to all of my classes, which led me to the conclusion that college is the absolute worst time a person can be on crutches.

I went on to make the mistake of waiting until the week after spring break to get surgery on my knee. If I had done it right away I would not have ruined the whole semester, but I literally spread out the process as evenly as I could from January to May. The process not only took a toll physically, but academically as it made what was supposed to be the easiest academic year challenging. I was forced to miss weeks of class in all 6 of my classes then make up the work all at once while also dealing with therapy.

Despite all this; however, I think when I look back on my freshman year I will still weirdly have a positive outlook on it. While the potential it had was extremely great, I still had a fantastic time meeting new people and doing this life experience with my (hopefully) life-long friends. It is something that I am grateful to have experienced, and I look forward to sophomore year with great expectations.