As I pack up my dorm room and take finals in all my classes, I start to choke up thinking of all of my expectations coming into this year and how they were met, how they were not and how my freshmen year was so much more than I could’ve ever imagined. I think of the person I was when I moved here in August and I’m blown away by how much I’ve grown as a student and person and how much one year could mean to me.

I expected my life as a student in college to be the same as it was in high school which was absolute trash but it turned out to be quite the opposite. Coming to Ole Miss and away from the toxic environment that was my high school has changed me as a student for the better. In this year as a student I’ve realized that caring about doing my best will produce better results than caring about being perfect ever will. If you would’ve told me in high school that I would have a 109% in Business Calculus in college I would’ve laughed in your face because I almost failed math in high school but because I’m focusing on truly learning and doing my best I’ve become better in subjects I never thought I could be good in. I’ve also realized that reading one essay that may have seemed insignificant to the rest of my classmates was the first time in my life my feelings about the elite education system and my past in it were validated. I knew from one week of college my identity as a student and person had shifted for the better but it wasn’t until that essay that my feelings were validated. That one essay picked by Mrs. B for my Writing 102 class was “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League” by William Deresiewicz and that one essay manifested an entire semester’s worth of assignments and research. I became a better student because of this essay and this research because I learned that being a good student isn’t how high my grades are but being a good student means doing the best I can and taking full advantage of education as a way to grow in every aspect of myself.

An actual screenshot of my math grade that I would’ve never expected to happen!!!

As for me as a person in college I expected to grow in the usual ways everyone talks about like dealing with being away from home for the first time, handling being on my own to take care of myself, etc. and obviously those growth spurts happened but I grew in other ways that seem far bigger than those. I came here in August so excited to live with my roommate and for the year that we would live in our little shoebox of a dorm room we would make a home and a countless memories together but that didn’t happen in the slightest. My roommate hates being at Ole Miss and has wanted nothing more than to leave Oxford from the minute she got here and that affected us living together because she barely left the room all year and claimed it as hers alone even though we live together. Going to college away from home was hard and not having somewhere where I could truly call home was even harder. I feel like I’ve lived in limbo but what kept me centered was that I had a new life here and I loved it so much that not having one physical place to go to didn’t matter because I was creating a home for myself in everything and everyone around me in Oxford.

I created a home in the law school Einstein’s for it brought me bagels and a study spot for the entire year. I created a home in the connections I’ve made with my teachers especially my EDHE teacher who has become my mentor that I couldn’t have survived this year without. I created a home in 3 am drives to the Lamar Park neighborhood with one of my best friends that always seem to fix whatever’s wrong in our lives. I created a home in Kappa where I’ve met so many lifelong friends and been given so many incredible opportunities like representing my chapter at Leadership Academy. I’ve made a home in every person and every thing that has made me love Ole Miss and my life here.

I think that for every event that’s happened in my life there’s a song that goes with it for one reason or another. Other than the fact that as freshmen as a whole I think all of us will think of Closer by the Chainsmokers when we think of our freshmen year. The song of freshmen year for me is Bottle It Up by Sam Hunt because there a few other things I think of when I think of wanting to bottle up a time and keep it forever. In this one year alone, I’ve learned that other people have experienced the same thing I did when I was in high school, that I’m a better student when I just focus on doing the best I can, that even though I wanted a roommate who would create a home with me I can survive without it and that sometimes home is where you let your heart rest instead of your head.

(Every freshmen ever when we hear Closer)

I read this quote the other day and I think it sums up how I feel about my freshmen year ending.

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”
I’m going to miss my friends I met this year that I now can’t picture my life without. I’m going to miss the teachers who’ve guided me along the way to make it through this year. I’m going to miss my favorite study spots, restaurants, and hangouts because some of my best memories this year were made in them. And I’m going to miss who I’ve become this year the most because who I’ve become this year is the best me I’ve ever been to date and for who I am at this moment I will never have so much to look forward to again in my life. So I will miss who I am right now because as of right now I’m still a freshmen and the best is yet to come.