As I sit here in my dorm I hear the unfamiliar voices of my floormates' parents outside my door. Storage boxes line the hallway and cars with open trunks line the streets, ready to be loaded and driven home. I wish I was going home too, but I'll be staying in Pittsburgh for a summer internship. While I prepare myself for the exciting months ahead of me, I am simultaneously thinking back on the months that have just passed -- the months which made up my freshman year of college, the months that came to an end yesterday afternoon as I handed in my last final exam.
I still remember August of last year, when I sat on my bed at home and looked around myself at my unusually clean room. The books were stacked neatly on their shelves, the table cleared off and covered only with the glow of an old desk lamp, the violin stand tucked into a corner and the violin against the wall, the closet almost empty, and the suitcases, which I tried to pack my whole life in, waiting near the door for the moment I'd move out. I was nervous to leave the town where I lived for my entire life, nervous to leave the parents who loved and supported me through everything I did, nervous to leave the friends who I shared so many unforgettable memories with. And yet, as orientation week rolled around the corner, I was thrown into a world of complete strangers, unfamiliar surroundings, a bed that was too high, bus routes which confused me, and food that was much too salty. Everything became a blur of "What's your name? What's your major? Where are you from? What dorm do you live in?" I felt as if I met more people in that one week than I had met my whole life. It was crazy.
It wasn't long, though, before I began to say things like "I'm going home now" when I was headed to my dorm, or before I began to eat every meal with a regular group of people -- the people who are now my best friends. Classes were hard, there's no doubt about that, but it was through those hours of frustration trying to figure out problem sets together that I became friends with half of the people I am close with today. Life began to settle into a regular pattern. Pretty soon, I was figuring out who I going to live with next year, locking down a job and internship for the summer, and making a Four Year Plan with my academic adviser. Then came Carnival, then two weeks of hell as I spent every free moment coding my term project, then finals week. And just like that, my freshman year was over.
I learned some things this year. There are the simple things, like learning how to keep a checkbook, how to take a bus to South Side or the Waterfront or Squirrel Hill, how to fill out tax forms, how not to get drunk, and how to fly home and back to Pittsburgh by myself. But then there are the other things: I learned how much I depend on my parents, I learned how genuinely good people all my friends are, I learned how small my accomplishments are compared to those of some other so talented people here, I learned what trust is and what it means to abuse it, I learned how important it is not to waste money, and I learned how often it is that people make mistakes. I learned that things never turn out the way you expect them to -- freshman year sure didn't -- but I also learned that once you accept this, happiness is never far away.
