Leah Wells
Univ 150
Sara Moseley
January 26, 2015
The College Life Transition
When moving to Virginia, in order to go to Old Dominion University, all I could think about was how much fun I was going to have. Especially, without my parents telling me what to do every second of my life. However, what I did not know was I would have a lot of growing up to do, in order to pass all of my classes. My transition to college was a very difficult process for me and the reasons were because I did not have my mother keeping me in line, being away from my family and finally because high school did not prepare me for the intense work.
“Wake up, wake up, and wake up!” Oh how I miss my mother waking me up for school every day. The first couple of weeks of college were great. All I did was hang out with my friends. School work was the last thing on my mind. However, the party life of college suddenly stopped when my progress report came out. I realized that I needed to grow up and take control of my life in order for me to graduate. In high school my mother always kept me on the right path. “Leah did you do your homework”, she would ask. My mother was my motivation to succeed in life, helping me through all my complications in school. Now, that I had no one to make sure I woke up in the morning, I had to learn how to wake up on my own. Coming to my dorm room without a home cooked meal was stressful at times but made me learned how to cook. Back at home I was always surrounded by my loved ones, so at college I started to feel alone after the first couple weeks of partying wore off.
Mentally one of the hardest things in trying to transition to college for me was I missed my family. My family is extremely close, they support me in anything I do. I have the type of family that if I called them just to talk about my day they will take a break from work just to listen. Being away from my family began to break me down. Literally! One little thing would cause me to bust out in tears because I knew seeing them was not an option. It would be months before I would see them. Nonetheless, this made me more independent and even stronger mentally and emotionally. Even when dealing with being away from my family high school did not help prepare me for the humongous work load of college.
High school was a walk in the park for me, extremely easy. My teachers were always telling me what I had to do in order to get a good grade. They also went out of their way to make sure the students had more than enough time to finish any work they assigned. Now being in college I feel like there is not enough time in the world to get done what my teachers have assigned me. Yet, I learned that there are many tutoring places I can go if I need help. My professors wants the best for me. Nevertheless, they will not babysit me with my school work like my high school teachers did.
Transitioning from high school to college has truly been a learning experience for me. There were a lot of tears, breakdowns and a lot of eating however moving away to college has made me a better individual. I found out what is really important in life and what is not. Even though, it was a big step in my life I conquered all the challenges that came my way. From not having my mother to direct me in the right path, not having my family’s guidance and my high school not preparing me I still made out fine with transitioning and I am doing well in college.