By Mary Williams, For The Miami Student
When I first applied to college, my parents' friends would look at me and say the clichéd "College is the best four years of your life."
While I agree with the wise parents whole-heartedly, I think the statement must be amended. While college has the capability to be the best four years of your life, it also has the capability to hold the worst.
As a senior, I can positively say that while college has been the most fun, rewarding and awesome experience that I do not want to leave behind, some of my worst memories are from college.
Upon leaving the dimly lit, linoleum-graced high school halls for college, most newcomers will automatically focus on the good. You are told how you will meet your best friends in your dorm, how your classes will be stimulating, your major will be rewarding and you will know what you want to do immediately.
You'll go to parties and indulge in the work hard, play-hard mentality that you throw back with the communal punch. Everyone grabs a Natty.
Here's what we weren't told: You will make friends in your freshman dorm, but you will not be friends with the majority of people in your freshman dorm after that year. You will all probably fight a lot with the people across the hall since you have clashing personalities.
You will have classes that are easy, but you will most likely struggle in your classes freshman year, because you took botany thinking it would be an easy A only to find out that your teacher's exams are based on readings he never gave you. Sometimes you hate your major so much you'll cry and wonder why you chose it.
You will clash with a professor. You might get arrested Uptown for drunken disorderly conduct or you might drink so much that you puke while walking in front of a line of people waiting to get into the bars.
You will forget about a paper that was due last week. You will miss an exam.
You will get homesick at inconvenient times and not know where to turn. You will eventually refer to college as home and your mom will be mad at you for that. You will get in fights with the people who you love the most. You will have your heart broken. You will make mistakes.
Everyone has most likely experienced some variation of the aforementioned college occurrences, or else they will. But, the point is, while these experiences are the worst, they shape us into who we are, and as a senior, I can say that the messiness of college lifestyle has definitely made me a better, stronger person.
So while college has been the best four years of my life, it has also, sometimes, been the worst. And I am thankful for that.