What I’ve learned halfway through my college experience

When you first enter college you quickly realize you learn lots of lessons — and not just from the classroom. Whether you’re hitting the gym for the first time to fight the freshmen fifteen (that you didn’t think actually existed)  or experiencing your first all nighter, college is a time of learning. We were all once noobs at UF, but by now we have mastered the art of college (kind of). Whether you were experiencing college for the first time this year or are getting ready to leave, you’ve learned some valuable lessons from this place.

Germs are everywhere

You will get sick eventually, and you are not immune to the Gainesville Plague. At some point or another you might even pay a visit to the Student Healthcare Center. You may turn into the germaphobe  who brings Clorox wipes to the library in Ziploc baggies to sanitize the cubby that she inhabits for the night. You’ll have the last laugh though, when everyone else is too busy coughing in the lecture halls.

Do not be nervous about how much everyone loves nature

Here at UF everyone frickin’ loves to hammock. Walking from class to class you’ll see people chilling at the Plaza of the Americas in their hammocks and really everywhere else on campus. I’ve become more appreciative of nature seeing everyone else enjoy it. Also there really are alligators everywhere.

People at UF are passionate

Nearly every person I’ve met here cares about something, whether it’s animal welfare, human rights, charity, or school spirit. Not only are the students passionate but the random old men who preach on campus are too. If you walk through Turlington, you’ll be damned to hell and yelled at by old men who can’t seem to color their signs very well.

“What like, it’s hard?” 

You will do poorly on quite a few tests, and no it doesn’t matter that you were an AP student. The reality is college is actually hard. Study Edge saved my life though, they’re probably the reason I’m still here today. Shout out to Drizzy Drapes! You saved my calc grade.

Take classes outside of your major

I’ve learned the importance of taking at least one class that’s outside your major. I took a plant class called Plants Gardening and You. Every week I got a free plant, and every week my roommates made fun of me for all the plants I tried to squeeze in our cramped triple. My roommates took this really neat class where every Friday they met and ran through scenic areas around Gainesville. College is a chance for you to explore different subjects and try something new. What a better way to do it than taking a fun and different elective?

RIP to all the plants that fell off the fourth story window sill

Random roommates are not the end of the world

You may end up living with random people, and if you are like me, you’ll end up in a triple with two best friends who wanted a double, but it won’t be awful I promise.

Your roommates may make a game out of using your belongings to build a tower on your desk. They’ll leave sticky notes of penises all over because why not? Or that may just be my roommates…

These guys will become your best friends and you’ll do everything together. Randomly get ice cream, jam out in communal bathrooms, stay up late doing nothing productive except watching American Horror Story. You’ll get annoyed from the boys upstairs trying to keep us awake when we’re trying to sleep. You won’t know these random roommates and then all of a sudden you can’t imagine your college experience without them.