First Year Residence Life and Issues

Growing up with an older brother and always being closer to boys throughout my life caused for my first year to be a real life changer. Living in a residence with all girls took me through the stereotypes and the out of the ordinary ways of life.

On my floor in the residence there were more than enough issues from people causing issues with our don/RA, to messing up our lounge, to issues on campus. The issues began with the girls on the floor having an invisible line the separated the girls into different groups. From there more issues developed and it ended with all the girls on the floor being locked out of our lounge which was our means of watching tv and making our meals. So basically we all just mingled with our groups and went to the caf or got take out.

Along with issues in the residence for me there was an issue of health. Being in a new town all alone was a hard time for me. I hated being so far from friends and family. I loved the friends I had made but being only 17 and in a new place all i wanted was to go home and be with everyone. While I was there my great grandmother passed away so I had to go home for a while for her funeral and that was what made it worse. Coming back to Waterloo my friend at the other school noticed differences in my behaviour and that I was not myself. For the 8 months that I was there I went through ups and downs almost feeling depressed to no end.

Along with feeling depressed I dealt with an 6 month stint of being sick. I tried everything to kick the colds, infections, etc but nothing would do it and being away from home also made the feeling worse. After 17 years of having someone there to look after you in a room of your own all you want is your mom to be there and to have a bed in your own room so you can just relax and sleep without bothering anyone or being bothered.

Lack of sleep did not help the fact of getting up to go to class. Living in residence meant that I was right on campus which also meant that I woke up literally 20 minutes before class to have enough time to brush my teeth and leave. Pyjama's was a frequent site in my classes because of this fact.

I worked very hard in all of my classes and very rarely skipped one. I successfully made it through my first year at University and decided that that program was not what I was looking to do for the rest of my life. It was going to take me down a path that eventually would get me to where I wanted to be but with a whole lot of information and classes that were not of interest to me. I would have had a degree in something that I had no interest with and would have struggled through for no reason so I switched to a school with a small campus and a lot closer to home doing exactly what my interest and aspirations were.

My first year consisted of many illnesses, issues with people on my floor, and a whole lot of sleeping in and rolling out of bed to get to class. But it lead me down a path where I met friends that would last a life time and showed me exactly what I wanted from my education and lead me to the rest of my college life.