By Sophomore Callie Barnett
Echo Staff Writer
No one prepares you for college; no one can.
Something you can never prepare for is the change that happens between you and your family. It can be a tough transition going from living with your family and coming home to them every evening, to slumping back to your dorm at 2 a.m. after studying for hours in the library.
There are no curfews and no rules. It is freedom — or so you think at first.
For me, the change was gradual. Now that I’m a sophomore, the change has hit. I realize how different family is and how my family sees me.
My first year of college when I would visit home it was all happy hugs and tears upon leaving.
Now when I visit, I see my relationship equal to that of my dad visiting his parents. I am no longer the child visiting home, I am the adult visiting home. They have made a life at home without me and I am now just a visitor.
It is a weird concept to comprehend.
We are placed into this “adult” category, yet we have no idea how to be adults. I find myself googling “how-to” articles and videos weekly and calling my mom for SOS questions when google can’t help me. Why were we not taught how to be adults in high school?
High schools think they prepare us for college, yet I learned nothing about the real world.
Managing my schedule, keeping up my grades, going to work and successfully making payments on time can be difficult. We are all just struggling together, not sure what the hell we are doing 90 percent of the time.
That is what adulting is, that is what college is like, and it is the most fun and stressful part of life I have yet to go through. Figuring out how to be an adult after you are already categorized as one is tough.
You would think we would have to become an adult to be considered one, but that was not how life decided to work. Freedom is not all it is cracked out to be and a lot responsibility comes with it.
College is, unfortunately, the point in which growing up seems to be the only option.
