I did not hear of “sophomore slump” until this morning as I talked to my ex-roommate from last year. I was explaining to her the ups and downs of my week- my 3 midterms which all crept up at once and how sophomore year is just SO different than what I was expecting.
Freshman year was filled with this thrill, a thrill of being away from home for the first time, of new friends, parties, new classes, and just the freedom and independence. Even with all that, somehow I had managed to be disciplined about the way I conducted by studies and extra-curricular activities. This year, I expected to come in with the same excitement, the same new experience, but it feels very different and I did not know how to explain it until I spoke to my roommate who introduced me to this “Sophomore Slump” phrase.
The “newness” has now faded, rather it is now filled with an anxiousness and urgency about choosing a career path, making sure your major is right for you, and worrying about whether you are making the most out of your college experience- socially and academically. It has been almost 6 weeks into Sophomore year, and I have yet to find the balance and rhythm which I had found very quickly into Freshman year.
For me this year, I came in knowing that I had over-committed to my extra curricular activities – research, Academy Coach, VSA, ASBME, GMB, THV, all of which I was very proud of and loved doing. In the first 3 weeks of the year, I became so involved in balancing all these activities with my rigorous coursework this year, that I did not even realize a month of college had passed. Living in an apartment with friends, added an additional distraction, although without them, I would probably forget about maintaining a social life. To add a cherry on the top, I was also going through a kind of mid-college crisis thinking about whether I wanted to pursue medical school after and whether I would be able to hold up a good GPA to do so with such a hard major. Suddenly, trying to balance everything, this past week midterms hit me hard… 3 midterms the 5th week in, I was definitely not ready.
I was stressing and worrying about so many things, that my hard hours put into studying did not pay off. There is something about sophomore year where the bloom of college wears off, some classes seem arbitrary, and the entire college experience seems daunting. The honeymoon phase has ended and the disillusionment has hit. As discouraging as all of it is, I am fighting to rekindle my passion for my studies and am trying to not fall in a rut. I am still fighting and I realize that the only way to avoid Sophomore Slump is to stay active, and to be around the people that keep you going …friends, work people, professors about career and major choices. I owe a lot to those people that I have looked to to gain perspective on college and life in general the past couple weeks–engineering advisers, premed advisers, professors, and friends…they have helped me a lot!
