I wrote a letter to myself the day before I left to move from my hometown to Purdue. I had previously only lived in New York and attended the same school district since Kindergarten. I was absolutely terrified to leave my small bubble that was my hometown to move to an entirely different state not knowing a single person. I decided at 3 AM the night before my mom and I were going to drive 12 hours to Purdue, to write myself a letter in my phone that I locked with the title “DON’T OPEN UNTIL THE END OF FRESHMAN YEAR.” Since it is now the end of my freshman year, I decided that I would open it and look back at how much I have grown since August.
Here is that letter:
Amy,
I can’t tell you how proud I am of us for getting through freshman year. I truly hope that you were not sent home prior to Thanksgiving and that you have been able to make a ton of friends. I am sitting here now at 3:19 AM so nervous and excited to start this new chapter of my life. I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to go in person and if we were sent home early, I am so so sorry and I already know we are going to be really upset about it. But, if that does happen, it all happens for a reason and we know what we want to do with our life (as of right now haha). We may have changed our mind on our major because of our course load. If we did, I am still proud for doing it early. I hope that we are able to make a strong group of friends. We may in the future want to transfer schools because Purdue didn’t work out and that’s ok! I’m sure we are going to get stressed out, cry a lot since we are emotionally driven, and go through a lot of stuff but I am so proud of all the stuff we have been able to conquer in the past, present and future. Reading this months from now I hope that we have grown emotionally, educationally and just have overall become a better person. If we join a sorority, Great! If we don't, that's also fine as well. I am sitting here now hoping that college is going to change our life for the better and I have faith that we are able to do that.
Good Luck in Sophomore Year!
Love,
Scared Freshman Amy
If I could go back to Amy in August, I would tell her these pieces of advice:
Yes, it's going to be a transition to move to the Midwest and yes, people are actually this nice in the Midwest.
You are going to join Kappa Delta and you at first aren’t going to feel like you belong and become worried that you don’t fit in. Just give it time. You will eventually find your footing and learn to find people who love you for all of your weirdness.
Friends come and go, don’t get discouraged when you stop being friends with people you were convinced you were going to become best friends with.
You aren’t going to have that “friend group” that you have always pictured. You will learn that it's ok to have friends from all different aspects of your life.
You are eventually going to find people you love you for who you are. Don’t worry.
MA 137 (Math for Elementary School Teachers) is going to kick your butt. You will pass the class, I promise.
You are going to learn to embrace your quirks and the parts of your personality that people used to make fun about you. The ones who don’t accept all of you aren’t your people.
Don’t compare yourself to others, I know this is extremely cliché but it's going to kill you if you don’t stop.
Soak up every moment that you can. Take lots of pictures so you can remember everything.
Being a freshman in a pandemic isn’t going to be all sunshine and rainbows, you are going to have lots of mental breakdowns, anxiety attacks and question if you made the right choice, you did. Just breathe. You got this.
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