He Said: Dear Freshman Year Me

By Anthony Santino

Perspectives Editor

Dear freshman year Anthony,

What’s up? You’re talking to yourself in the third person for the last “He Said, She Said” of your college career. Look how far you’ve come.

I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing, but hopefully it involves Linda’s or 63’s—because this is a nostalgic piece and I’m going to miss those places.

A lot has happened between where you are now and where you’re going to be in late April of 2018. In that time, you’ve done a few cool internships that gave you quality media production experience, you actually got some playing time on the tennis team (didn’t think that was going to happen, huh?) and you even got into a long term relationship. At least three things you didn’t think would ever happen did in fact happen, and a lot more, too.

When you get to where I am now, you’ll fully understand how good of a decision it was to choose Sacred Heart. You’ve already experienced about a fourth of it, but the rest of the journey provides you with plenty of learning experiences that’ll get you in better touch with the world around you. (Of course there’s much more of that to go, but you catch my drift.)

As I can recall, since you’ve mostly taken common core classes, you probably feel a bit lost in regards to your major and what’s to come. Don’t worry. That’s going to work itself out sophomore year and you’re going to like the classes you take.

Junior year will be fun too. You live in an off-campus house, and a lot of good stories come from that place (just don’t expect the security deposit back). You also end up moving to a new pad for senior year, but don’t worry, it’s not out of bad blood, and it works much better as far as peace of mind goes.

I guess in this kind of piece, the author is supposed to give him or herself advice, so I’ll do that.

If I remember correctly how you were as a freshman, I’d start by telling you to always stick to your gut. That’s seemingly general advice, and you’d probably expect that to be a given in life, but trust me—you need to hear that as often as possible. I’m you, so I know how you think; and that goes for every stage of life that’s happened so far. The good news is you get less hesitant as time goes on, and you’ll start to feel yourself coming into your own more and more. It’s great, and you’ll be there very soon.

I’ll be honest: there are a couple of tough times. But you come to realize that these difficult periods you face through college aren’t that bad in the long run, and they teach you an education money can’t buy. (Money can buy an egg and cheese from UCBC though. You’ll miss that, too, once you start going there.)

Despite the tough times, the good outweighs the bad a hundred fold. You’re still very close with your core group of freshman year friends, and you pick up some good new ones along the way.

For most people, talking to themself like this would be weird. Little do they know you’re an only child and are used to talking to yourself. So this letter is probably not creepy to you. Perhaps it’s kind of lame, depending on your mood. But hey, lame is better than creepy.

I’ll wrap it up here because you probably have some Merritt Canteen to eat or a tennis practice to go to. Go forth and enjoy college. It’s going to be over faster than an episode of “The Office.”

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