With the obligatory “done is good” tweet sent on Saturday afternoon, my sophomore year of college is officially finished. As I start packing up my room in Rhoads South, saying goodbye to some friends, and goodnight to others, the reality that I only have two more years here at Bryn Mawr is insane. This year, though has been tough-emotionally, physically and academically tough (yes the sophomore slump is real.) But I learned a lot about myself emotionally, physically, and academically that I hope will really help me at Bryn Mawr, and in the future.

This year I’ve lost friends, it’s true you don’t always stay friends with everyone from your first year. But I made some pretty amazing new friends. One of the biggest draws for me about college-especially Bryn Mawr was the friendships I would make. It’s amazing the people you meet here, and I honestly don’t know what I would do without all the people I’ve met and made connections with.

Emotionally, this year has been tough. I got rejected from things, I lost friends, and sometimes (a lot of the times) school work made me cry. I still found difficulty socially in finding my place at Bryn Mawr. This year has made me more confused about my future now more than ever. I questioned myself, my goals, and my aspirations. And honestly, I think this is something that will be occurring for a while.

Academically, my classes got way harder than I was expecting. I got waitlisted to classes right from the beginning. Labs got harder and required more time. My schedule was unbalanced-8AMs everyday, some days from 8-4PM with only an hour break. I had difficulty choosing my major going back and forth between 3 majors for months, stressing my mom out with the “Mamma, what should I do” question every week (seriously), and eventually picking one.

This year was definitely an uphill battle, but if I can make it through the sophomore slump, I can do anything right?

Below is a poem that my friend, Kyra, introduced me to that resonates with me and I feel accurately describes my year:

“it has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. i learned everything is temporary. moments. feelings. people. flowers. i learned love is about giving. everything. and letting it hurt. i learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. i learned all things come in twos. life and death. pain and joy. salt and sugar. me and you. it is the balance of the universe. it has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. making friends out of strangers. making strangers out of friends. learning mint chocolate chip ice-cream will fix just about everything. and for the pains it can’t there will be my mothers arms. we must learn to focus on warm energy. always. soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world. for if we can’t learn to be kinder to each other how will we ever learn to be kinder to the most desperate part of ourselves.” ~rupi kaur

~Thank you all for dancing through sophomore year with me!~