Why Your College Life Won’t Always Go According to Plan

Ciao lovelies! Since my last “advice” style post was well received, I decided to write another, this time explaining why, no matter how organized, careful, and well-planned you are, your college/ university life will not go perfectly according to plan.

Now I know that many people go into college/university with huge plans. They have their whole four years mapped out, down to the seconds. And while yes, planning is immensely important to your life goals, there is no earthly way that everything can go swimmingly.

I am sure that some of you are reassuring yourself now. “Well I have back up plans B-Z” I hear you saying. And I want to pause and praise you for your preparedness! It is always extremely valuable to have backup plans! However, sometimes, even those won’t work. And here’s why.

No matter how many times you visit your desired university, or how many times you write, and rewrite your first semester course list, no matter how many times you meticulously plan out how you will lay out your dorm room, how you will organize your day, how you will handle the workload- there will always be a variable.

You may walk into college fully prepared to be a doctor. You begin your first semester, take your first anatomy class, and discover that, well, you have a huge phobia of blood. And then comes the “Uh oh” moment.

Of course, that’s an extreme example. On a more common note, you may have all your classes planned out and tell yourself that you’re fully prepared for the workload. “I was an AP student” you may say, “I can handle this.” And then, you sit down at your first 9AM lecture class, bright eyed and ready to learn, and you may get a professor who doesn’t have that same enthusiasm you do, and ruins the course for you. Or they may not teach in the way you expected. And suddenly that super-can-do attitude is gone, replaced with concerns that “Oh no, I might not even pass this class!”

Or, like me, something may happen that’s entirely out of your control. I got a concussion first semester, and due to it, I had to be on what’s called “brain rest” for weeks. This meant no screens, reading, attending class. I began to seriously worry whether I would even pass any of my classes. I went to the school psychiatrist and we were getting me withdrawn from a class. Everything I planned was suddenly null and void all because of something completely out of my control.

I’m not telling you these things to scare you, or make you panic, or make you feel unprepared. I am simply informing you of the fact that you simply can’t go into college fully reliant on your plans. You must be flexible and willing to adapt to changes that will inevitably happen around you. It’s how all things have survived for centuries.

Keep your main goals close to your heart. Identify not just what you want to major in, but why. Because later if you end up changing your major, you will still be able to maintain the reasons you went to higher learning in the first place.

And, for everything else, just be flexible, be changeable, be willing to learn. College/university is an experience and a chance to grow. Don’t be worried if everything isn’t perfect all the time.

I hope this little tidbit of advice helps! See you in my next post!