Right now, the Grammys are on, last weekend it was the Super Bowl. I honestly am drowning in schoolwork yet I still have zero motivation. There are literally 20 things I should be doing, but instead I am doing this. Of course, but I digress. This July will be my third year in North Carolina. When I first got here, a transplant from California who had a yearlong layover in Philadelphia, I more than strongly disliked it. I left my first university because it was beyond expensive and my mom had just moved into the vicinity of the one of the best public universities in the nation. I withdrew from my first college in the middle of the summer, July 2013. It felt like my life was falling apart. I started community college less than a month later and thank goodness for an amazing academic advisor, Abby Littlefield, at the Western Wake Campus, I didn’t waste any academic time. Other than school, I didn’t do as much as I probably should have, but honestly, I don’t think I could have done more than school. At the end of January, I submitted my application for UNC. Then, I just waited. It felt a little like going into autopilot. I got up, went to school, did my homework, went to sleep, and repeat, repeat, repeat. But on the 15th of April 2014, I received THE email. I got in. I got in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill! It suddenly felt like I was a second semester senior again and it was a relief.
Everyone told me how much I would love UNC and how much fun I would have. This of course sets up for unnecessary expectations and disappointment. I figured I would enjoy it as much as I enjoyed community college, which is to say, not much. But I left my expectations at the door and started college, again.
Now that I am done with my first semester, I can say I didn’t like it. I don’t know why, maybe it was classes, or a new place, or just frustration that I had to start all over again. But more so than anything else, I didn’t know what I wanted or what I was looking for. I took classes that fulfilled the last of my GEs and classes that I could still register for well into August. On the first day of class, I was registered for 2 classes, neither of which I ended up going to. If you want a class, show up on the first day and don’t stop going. Talk to the instructor, you’ll most likely get in. I didn’t really understand this last semester—even if the classes are closed, just SHOW UP. At this point in life, I’m fairly certain that in life 99.8% is just showing up.
The first semester, you aren’t really going to know what’s going on, you could have gone to a four-year college to begin with, but your first college is going to be different from UNC, as no two colleges are the same. During the first semester, I struggled a little bit academically. To be fair, many, many different people warned me my GPA would drop but I wanted to be the exception to this rule, I was not. You probably will too, but don’t worry; you’ll figure it out. You will learn about more and more resources the school has to offer as time goes on, you will meet nice people who want to be your friend, and you will have someone who cares about your success at UNC. It’s going to be okay, even if you strongly dislike it when you first start wherever you start. I highly recommend taking classes that you are actually interested in because you’ll do a lot better when you actually look forward to what you are studying instead of dreading it, like I did last semester. When you actually care about the classes you are taking, you’ll enjoy school a lot more.Chances are if you got into Carolina, you’re probably pretty smart, which means to some degree you kinda, sorta enjoy the idea of school—whether you like to admit it or not.
Let me mention that I am a commuter, so I don’t have the community-on-campus camaraderie I once had. By not living on campus, I am not forced to be sociable, which I wish, I was; however, staying in Chapel Hill is not a financially sound decision for me. Though I miss living amongst friends, it doesn’t mean I don’t like it here, and it certainly doesn’t mean, “my life is falling apart.” Now thinking back, I may have been a touch dramatic. But even if coming to UNC wasn’t part of your plan A, or your plan B, or your plan K, walk around campus, be curious about anything and everything and don’t forget to breathe in and then breathe out, because otherwise you’ll die, but really because you won’t ever be here again, ever.
Written by Melanie Cheung
UNC - Chapel Hill Transfer Student Blog 