This is an excellent read for any college student or parent thereof – a reminder that everything is not always rosy, that growth involves struggle and sometimes failure, and that is okay as long as you keep learning and keep trying.
https://medium.com/@JamesKeane/why-i-lied-about-freshman-year-d44dd4e6c191
Thanks for the read. I would have like the author to discuss what turned things around for him - was it just the passage of time and adjusting to a new environment, or did he learn some particular lessons that allowed him to move on?
Facing challenges throughout life is natural and normal. Often kids aren’t prepared to handle adversity, especially those from privileged environments. College is only one of many places or periods in life where this can occur. The rules of the game are constantly changing.
By all means, talk about it. But also anticipate it. There are few people who do not struggle at some point in their lives. Dealing with failure, rejection and adversity early on can prepare kids to deal with life’s challenges at a later point. It sounds like the author was not well prepared by his manicured hometown and childhood environment.
It’s too bad this student didn’t go to the student counseling center where he would have discovered that he was not alone at all in feeling this way - and been offered some strategies for coping that might have eased the pain a lot sooner.
I wish school counseling centers would get more aggressive in their outreach. Stickers on every bathroom mirror, for example, that say ‘Stop by and introduce yourself.’ Too many students think the counseling center is for someone who ‘can’t cope’ rather than for everyone who, at some point, just needs an outside perspective by an expert who has seen many many students with similar issues and concerns.