Opinion: The college experience: sophomore year

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OPINION-Nationwide, CU students and other college students alike strive to attain the legendary yet ambiguous concept of “the college experience.”

Within recent years, the idea of the college experience has become a coined term with a strong reputation. Nationwide, it pressures students to adhere to one ultimate college experience.

Such conformity is absurd, since the perspectives and types of college experiences attune to the individual student.

The transitional period between a student’s freshman year and sophomore year is a key element of the college experience that goes overlooked.

Freshman year is full of care packages and endless excitement from freedom and the unfamiliar. It is a sexually-active summer camp. No matter the late night adventure, hot food always awaits in the morning.

As a sophomore right now, I can confirm that entering the second year of college feels a lot like being lost in the rubble.

Dorm life encompasses a plethora of securities and provisions: a meal plan, a tight-knit group of friends and a residential advisor always on duty.

But during the second year of college, a student undergoes their first confrontation with reality, not the glorified version of freedom that presents itself freshman year.

With a meal plan, friends and residential advisors in their past, sophomores find themselves in solitude.

However, rather than solitude rooted in serenity, these nights often feel lonely and your single room is just too quiet.

Amidst the silence, the sophomore college experience leads to an awareness of personal identity.

After the constant chaos of freshman year, this year allocates the time for a student to take a deep breath.

This year is the time for students to peel off the months of frat parties and dorm food and take a first real glimpse at themselves and evaluate their changing identity and its role in this new adult world.

This year, I have taken a step back and observed the person I have become over the past 19 years.

I can attest that this observation is not always an appealing one.

In fact, being confronted with your own identity is terrifying.

This year, I’ve seen that there are elements to my lifestyle that I know I must change. The trouble remains but most days hiding from them seems the easiest solution.

On a daily basis, the responsibilities of the real, adult world weigh enough to drown a sophomore in stress and unanticipated nostalgia of freshman year.

A sophomore student quickly registers the tangibility of money and begins to understand what being a broke college kid really means.

A $2.00 coffee means a smaller dinner. Asking for a glass of water at a restaurant instead of spending money on a Coke begins a common occurrence.

Though it is a cruel reality, sophomore students face the fact that money is a component of life that will never vanish.

But the trials of budgeting and implementing monetary structure will provide relief for sophomore students, allowing them the mental clarity to better access their evolving identities.

Never has setting an alarm been so important. In sophomore year, a student’s time becomes completely their own. Deciding how to balance and utilize it is a blindsiding task.

Above all, sophomore year is about learning to manage your own wellbeing in the adult world.

Underneath the burdens of money, time management and a changing social life, simple duties such as nourishment and cleanliness go astray.

Suddenly grocery shopping grows more complicated than writing an essay. Dishes pile up and living on granola bars seems the new way of life. Sophomore students find themselves with a one-way ticket to poor health, which only appends to the other complexities.

The new responsibilities that surface during sophomore year catch a student off guard after coming from a sheltered dormitory lifestyle.

There is hardly a sufficient transition after freshman year and, as a result, sophomore students often stagger through the year off-kilter. Time for studies, sleeping and a social life constantly conflict as sophomore students concurrently grapple with arranging their priorities.

The overarching truth of sophomore year is that depending on carelessness and living on a whim is easier than understanding time and scheduling to your benefit.

While the changes of sophomore year seem colossal, the good news is that just a little reliance upon structure goes a long way.  While routines are reputed monotonously, they make the mental room sophomores need for focusing on finding their identities in the adult world.

The college experience of a sophomore is a journey of drastic change charged with new sentiments and responsibilities. Stepping closer to the real world, sophomore students undergo the challenge of understanding who they are and who they want to be.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Devon Barrow at Devon.barrow@colorado.edu.