What I Learned From My Fifth Semester of College

I can’t believe I’ve had three spring semesters at Missouri Southern and I only have one more! A year ago, I wrote about how my spring 2018 semester was the best I’ve experienced, and the following semester, fall 2018, was the worst. These things are still true, but I think I’m slowly gaining back the strength and growth I lost last semester. Spring 2019 was good and also a struggle, but I learned a lot.

• Therapy is scary and hard but worth it. 100% worth it. Don’t be ashamed of seeking help for mental illness.
• Some days my mental health is so bad I can’t focus on anything at all and on these days, it’s okay to take a break and let my mind rest. My mind needs rest just as much as my body does (sometimes even more).
• I’m kind of behind on having stuff to put in my ePortfolio for my communication degrees, but luckily I learned this now so I have plenty of time to build it up before I graduate.
• Getting out of your comfort zone produces amazing things.
• Even though I’m not conventionally “brave”, I AM brave and courageous..
• My siblings are two of my favorite people.
• Writing the second draft of a novel is a lot hecking harder than the first draft.
• Traveling is fun but it’s freaking exhausting (2 big trips in one month is a no-go for me).
• Putting forth the time and effort to improve a skill is worth it (who would have thought I’d actually become a decent poet over the course of one semester?)

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Some things I did:

• One day I thought “Why am I not majoring in English?” and that day I decided to add a third major (English-technical writing)
• I jumped head-first into the English department and joined Sigma Tau Delta. I went to a convention in St Louis and got elected as secretary for the next school year!
• I traveled to Miami, Chicago, and St Louis!
• I read 15 books (and finished writing a second draft).
• I went to Orange Leaf with a friends a lot and it was so fun every time.

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I’ve been very back-and-forth in regards to whether this semester was “good” or “bad”, but then I realized: why do I need to label it? There were good things and there were bad things, and now the semester is over and it’s time to move on to the next chapter of my life. I am thankful for friends and health and Harry Potter and am excited to see what the future holds. Goodbye Spring 2019 semester, thanks for the lessons.