Starting college this year has been an experience that is worth taking a few notes about. I would never have guessed at the beginning of my senior year that my life now is what would have happened. As my first semester is coming to the end and the crunch time is on with finals right around the corner, it is important that I take the time to reflect on my experience here at UWM.
I come from a decent size town in Northern Minnesota which goes by the name of Bemidji and is roughly 90 miles away from the Canadian border. It is about four hours north of the Twin Cities and two hours north of the farthest place anyone wants to drive to in Minnesota (Brainerd). The town itself is a surprise to many people since they imagine it only having small Ma and Pa stores. Yes, Bemidji is a town with a mall that included a Kohl’s, and we have a TJ Maxx, Walmart, Target, etc., but by no means is it a city like Milwaukee.
The high school runs around having 1,200 students in it and the school district itself is one of the biggest employers in the area. All the students in Bemidji have been attending the same school with each other since middle school, with the exception of the Catholic school students for their middle school years. The biggest change at school was when the 10 (or less) people that attended the Catholic church’s school joined the rest of the high school age population at the start of Freshmen year. Since there was not a whole lot of new faces to get used to, the people that you were friends with in late elementary and early middle school stuck with you throughout high school.
First of all, I want to state that my high school experience was one that I wouldn’t have changed for the world. The friends that I have made are still my closest friends around, and for me, a lot of them are like family. They are the ones that I can truly talk to about all the woes of my life, but also all the little triumphs that I encounter as I manage to be on my own and an adult.
For me personally, my grades were pretty good and I made the honor roll every year. In some schools, this might mean that I didn’t have any time to do things other than study, but this wasn’t the case. I was involved in sports, attended activities with my friends and had a job. I didn’t just sit at home although that did happen. The amount of leisure time that I had left me bored and often I spent it tormenting my dog that just wanted to be left alone and sleep.
At the start of senior year, everyone always imagines college will be the best thing since the invention of sliced bread. I know I imagined myself with tons of leisure time that would let me explore the big city. This thought was not completely untrue as I have gone out on little trips in the city. I have to say that Milwaukee is nothing like my hometown of Bemidji.
The city itself is very diverse, and it has a variety of people from all different backgrounds and walks of life. Bemidji is not as diverse as Milwaukee because there is primarily two groups: Caucasian and Native American people since the town is located by Native American Reservations. In Milwaukee, when you walk down the streets you aren’t stopped by strangers asking “How are you?” Milwaukee is more you walk down the street and mind your own business kind of city.
The time that I have off during college is very little which makes it very precious and has to be spent wisely. Most of my life is going to school and work, then doing my homework, getting little sleep, eating food, and repeating everything the next day. When I do have a break in this cycle, I like to spend that by catching up on sleep or watching a movie. The movies are mostly crime based ones, the movies that contain a murder and just really creep you out. Which isn’t the best thing to watch when you are alone in a dorm room since I tend to get really paranoid and think I will be murdered in my locked room.
Some people don’t understand why I would want to stay in my room during the free time. I do it because I like to stay away from people during this time. When you deal with people at your job all the time, you tend to want to stay away from them during the time off. The friendliness that I have can only be stretched so far and for a certain amount of time. When I am done with work, that time is up and people are just a pain. The exceptions that I do have to this are my friends, which I ironically work with so it’s a party everyday at work.
As I have said before, all of my friends I have had up to this point are people I have known since elementary school. It was very strange to come to a faraway place and not know a single soul, but I adapted quickly. I had to come early for job training and it was a rough few days until I started getting to know everyone that I work with. After that, we all formed a tight group and started learning about how to function in our new life here at UWM. I would never have imagined that the people that I work with would have become my close friends but they have. We are all bonded whether they like it or not.
Not everything here in Milwaukee has been great. There have been some rough patches. I think the hardest times that I have here at UWM are during a very sleep deprived week. One specific day sticks out. It was a Monday and I had worked till 6 a.m., got four hours of sleep then went back to work. This Monday I had class after work until 3 p.m. and had planned on napping before my next class at 6:30 p.m. As soon as I had rested my head on my pillow, my RA knocked on the door to see if one of my suitemates was home. She was not home and I had to leave a sticky note for her to talk to my RA which we all were supposed to do a month ago. That disruption irritated me because my RA had done this same exact thing a week before and I left her a note for that too.
Plus, my suitemates find the simple task of replacing the toilet paper roll too hard to handle so I am always the one to do it. But on this day I had a giant migraine, didn’t get my nap in, and meet up with a group for my night class’ project. Then during this class, I was grilled with the same question of what my character’s name was for 30 minutes straight by my teacher’s lawyer friend. That was definitely a day that was rough and just had me hating life.
Overall, even with the bad times and the good times I have had so far here at UWM, I wouldn’t change a single thing. Hands down being in Milwaukee is a whole separate world than what I am used to in Bemidji, Minnesota. I definitely imagined that it would be different and I wasn’t sure whether that would be a good thing or bad thing, but it has all worked out good for me.
The lesson that I have learned from being at college is that you have to get outside of your comfort zone in life. I have learned what I am capable of doing on my own and am very proud of the independent person that I always was, this independence just needed a little prompting.