I Graduated! My College Experience + Things I learned

Hello all! I recently graduated from Washington State University and I took some time off of  my blog because I wanted to focus on school and friends, but I was also completely uninspired. Being in such a small town… in an old college house left me unmotivated to even want to take pictures or create content. But now I’m back on the west side of Washington and all of a sudden I am completely re-inspired. Like – seriously the ideas have been constant the last two weeks being back. Anyway.. that really doesn’t have a lot to do with graduating at all or my experiences in my 4 short years at school, but I just wanted to let y’all know why I haven’t been active.

I am going to try and make this as short as possible. If I were to say every single little thing I wanted to, we would be here for {another} 4 years and we don’t want that.

Okay so, being the first one in my immediate family to ever go to college, I had absolutely no idea what the hell I was getting myself into…

          I learned:

Everyone is raised differently. Seriously – having roommates taught me that not everyone has the same lifestyle as me.. AKA nobody goes to bed at 9:30 (my parents raised me to be a grandma, not complaining though)

People come and go – I never really experienced this before. I had the same two best friends all of high school. So many people left the school and you just never really see them again and you meet people you think you’ll be really good friends with, but then that friendship really doesn’t go anywhere. In the end, I met lots of people – some who are here to stay and some who were good only for the season of life I was in.

I like to make lists…about everything. I never really used a planner until college and my goodness, now, I have to write a list for everything and have to have my day planned out by the hour.

I love that small college town but… I reeeally love being near a mall. I found myself driving an hour and a half to get to the nearest Nordstrom, I just belong somewhere bigger. My mom has always known this about me. She’s still surprised I made it all 4 years in such a small town.

It’s okay to not do what everyone is doing. I realized that if I wanted to do something (like my blog and YouTube) I needed to just go for it. I taught myself that it’s okay if I didn’t go out every Friday night. That’s just not my thing or on top of my priority list. Everyone was constantly telling me that I can only do this college thing once and yeah, true, this is the only time I’ll be in college, but I still never understood that? Like I don’t even enjoy going out on a Monday night or whatever and what do you mean I can’t go out ever again once I graduate? By my junior year I really learned that it was okay for me to stay in whenever I wanted to stay in, even if people thought it was me wasting a weekend. Listen, I would rather watch a movie and have some popcorn and be in bed by 10 on a Friday night (anyone else?). Sorry went on a little tangent there.

          My Experience

The last 4 years were the best years of my life. I don’t regret anything for even a second. I also don’t regret having a boyfriend throughout this whole experience because why would I let someone I know will be in my life forever, go? Just to have the cliché “college experience” of single people?. Listen – no hate to those single-and-ready-to-mingle ladies, you go girl. But I was so happy to have my person near me always… honestly made my college experience that much better. And, yes, I know mine isn’t like the majority, but I am ~so~ okay with that. The first two years were truly about finding my place in this small town. I made some of my best friends in that time and once those people were brought into my life I was kind of done with the small town. I thought, “I have my people, now it’s time to go home.” I was truly ready to leave after my sophomore year, I couldn’t imagine the small town giving me anything else. I had done it all. I was seriously looking at other schools closer to home.. #homebody. But if y’all know me you know I couldn’t pull that trigger. I committed to something and I was determined to finish. My ego is way too big to just give in. I stayed… clearly, and I am so glad I did because it was those last two years where I truly figured out what I enjoyed doing, like this website! I think it was also the first time I lived away from campus and greek row so I found myself really doing things I enjoyed doing instead of doing things because they were convenient. Basically it made it easier to say “no” to people when I got invited to places because I was “ far away” (which I wasn’t, I was just *farther away). I am so glad I stayed because I did get to live with some of the best people ever. And they just knew me. I also found my love for barre this past year. Seriously best workout ever. I found out that I would rather sit in the parent section of a football game instead of the student section. My experience was definitely not a typical college experience. Yes, I went to a four-year university, but other than that I really found myself becoming comfortable doing my own thing with my own people. I’m glad that I get to say that I am the first person in my family to have a degree and that I really did the dang thing even if I really wanted to go home many many MANY times. I stuck around and I know I made my family proud. But now I am so excited to go on with my life and I’m so excited for the things to come in the near future.

I am so excited for the future of this website and I hope y’all want to stick around with me.

Bye for now! We’ll be seeing each other.