I am a teenager and freshman in college that must suffer through the demanding schedules, big changes, many stresses, and the attempt to discover who I am. Freshman in college, and teens in general, have to difficult time because they were poorly prepared for the life, and the challenges it contains. College is a lot different than the high schools that all incoming freshman left, but some have more trouble than others. I believe that I am adjusting rather well but the transition is not without challenges.

I have many obligations in college that I am responsible for keeping track of and completing. Maintaining a well drawn out and planned schedule can be the difference between success and failure in college. I keep my schedule of events, due dates for papers, and tests on my computer using Microsoft Outlook. School is the main thing that I have to keep a schedule. I tend to forget about important dates and end up rushing to get a paper done or cramming for a test at the last second. When I am not in class I still have to plan certain hours of each day for studying. Even though I do not actually study as much as I plan out I still try to give myself an hour or two each day. My parents have wanted me to come back to Tulsa for some family stuff so I have missed a couple classes and had to schedule around much of my school work and other obligations. Also, I have many fraternity obligations that I have to keep up with. I always must keep track of when dues are collected, when meetings are held, and when projects for the fraternity need to get completed. I do not forget many of the fraternity projects because I enjoy them a lot more than school and do not want to mess it up by forgetting important dates. It is challenging to keeping up with things that I am obligated to complete while still leaving free time so that I can relax and have a good time. On top of everything else I am attempting to obtain a job on campus which will require some creative scheduling to fit everything I need to do into a day. If I make a good schedule and follow that schedule then accomplishing things should not be a problem.

Many things change during the transition from high school and college. One major change for me is not living with my parents anymore. Since I am living alone, four hours away from my parents, I have to learn how to manage my time without someone pushing me to get things done. My management of my finances so that I have enough money for food and entertainment while keeping good records so I have enough money for rent can be strenuous at times. I can not just go into the pantry and grab whatever I want; I have to make sure to go out and shop for food and drinks. I sometimes eat whatever is laying around the apartment because I forget to go shopping for good food. There are many different types of people that go to school here from different parts of the United States. Back in Tulsa, my home town, I had made a pretty close group of friends and knew a good amount of people there. Here in Dallas there are completely new people that are not always the easiest to get along with or talk to. Since this is a completely different state it is hard to find new people to relate to, especially since I am from Oklahoma and not a lot of people from Texas like Oklahoma. There is much more studying required for a college student than a high school student. Since many classes meet two or three days a week students are expected to do the other work on their own. I still need to pick up my study habits because I have numerous classes where good studying is a necessity. The many changes that come with going to college can make it seem very hard to get anything done, but over time people adjust and enjoy college.

As a college freshman there are many pressures in my life to find out who I am and what kind of person I want to be when I grow older, not only in college but in life in general. Many teens have no self identity and often copy a group of people they see on television or the peers that they want to be friends with. This is a negative way to create an identity because a person is not his or her self; instead he or she is just a copy of someone else’s identity. Going to college is an opportunity for me to reinvent myself how I want. I pretty much already knew who I was and what kind of person I wanted to be coming out of high school, but I am now realizing that the person I am currently will probably be the person I will be for the rest of my life. I will always be a soccer player even though I quit the UTD soccer team three weeks into the season. I plan to join other soccer teams and may come back and play for UTD in the future. I have sat through many talks discussing how I should find or create a self identity that I can be proud of, and I believe that I have already created that person and am very proud of who I am.

Being a freshman in college has its downsides. I do not have my car down in Dallas yet because I have to earn it first. My parents want to see me succeed without them before they start giving me stuff. Also, my roommates are not the easiest people to get along with. I know dealing with roommates is suppose to help me grow as a person and help me learn to get along with people but two of my roommates are just impossible to deal with. However, I figure as long as I can make it through living with them then I will become a better person and the experience will have helped me. Learning to deal with new instructors with different teaching styles has been a challenge. I have one instructor that likes to lecture, one that does everything out of the book, and one that is all online. Getting used to other instructors habits and tendencies now will benefit me because I will always be running into different kinds of teaching styles and will have to be prepared to what each instructor wants and how they teach his or his subject. These challenges are some of the negative things in college but everyone has to take the bad with the good in any situation.

In conclusion being a teenager and a freshman in college has many challenges that I must overcome before I can take the next step in life. With all the difficult schedules, continuous changes, and many stresses college life will continue to give me a hard time. One of the majors things I must improve on are my study habits. However, if I do well in college and keep up with my work then I will become someone ever better than I am currently.