College is a time of big changes for anyone. There are a lot of major decisions to make.
You have to select your area of study and decide how you’re going spend your time on campus. The moves we make during these years on campus can outline the trajectory for our future.
Making concrete and life-changing decisions can feel overwhelming. Things in and out of your control can affect your life path. Choosing one club or class can feel insignificant. But, on the other hand, one experience can illuminate a dream you never knew you had. Conversely, one class or club won’t make or break your life. A failure or a misstep can be a chance to learn or find what’s right for you.
For me, this year has been especially crushing. I’ve felt stuck and frustrated due to how sick I’ve been. This summer, I wasn’t able to take on an internship. I’ve been in and out of the doctor and stuck in bed unable to focus on anything. I’m scared how sick I feel now is going to impact my future.
Writing my columns for this Summer semester was really my only connection to a world outside of my phone, class on my laptop, bedroom or doctors’ offices.
Sometimes I wrote what I needed to hear myself. Other times, I wrote about something impacting me in real time. Some things were reflective.
For me, I’m glad I made the decision to write this summer for The Alligator. It taught me a lot about myself.
I’m stuck on more than one decision for the Fall semester and grappling with the realities of what I can and can’t take on. More decisions being made by my body without my input.
I can’t tell my body to give me more energy and magically function at its best. I wish it was up to running down Stadium Road or past Century Tower under a curtain of Spanish moss. I wish I could spend late nights on campus working in the newsroom or at The Alligator. I wish I could do more outside of my dorm bed and fill my UF bucket list to the brim with things other than going to UF Health Shands Hospital multiple times a week, not for an internship, but for visits.
These decisions are made for me, by my doctors or by my health. I can’t change them as much as I want to. What I can do is make the most of the decisions left for me to make. College has taught me many lessons beyond the classroom, most of them about life. I may not have had my dream internship or campus experience yet, but I do have wisdom from my unique experiences that I might not have gotten any other way. And I do have wonderful professors, doctors, mentors and friends who have given me something that’s one of the most important parts of college to me: community.
Sophie Feinberg is a UF journalism junior. Her column comes out Tuesday and Thursday.
