Expect the Unexpected by Stephanie

Expect the Unexpected by Stephanie - April 2016 Scholarship Essay

In this journey we call life, we will always continue to encounter new experiences. Some are wonderful, others not so much, but this is what makes life interesting. When I graduated high school on June 5, 2015, it was one of the most exciting yet scariest moments of my life. I was ecstatic that I had made it through twelve years of school, and received my diploma with honors. The fact that I was accepted into college made me even more excited, but I was still afraid of my near future. I knew little about what laid ahead of me in my next chapter of life.
My next chapter of life started on August 17, 2015, which was the day I moved into college. Honestly, I was not worried about making new friends when I came to college. I was more nervous about finding my way around campus, passing classes with good grades, and ending up hating my roommate. During my first week of college, I was homesick and wondered if I would even pull through my first semester. Throughout my first semester, two things happened that I thought were virtually impossible. I certainly did not expect them to happen at all; I know now that life has its unique way of surprising us.
As I had said before, when I came to college I was not worried about making new friends, simply because I am an outgoing person. I knew that I was going to meet a lot of people, and I do have many ‘friends’ here. Despite this, only three of them are who I can genuinely call my best friends. We had all met each other throughout my first week of the semester in orientation activities. We started spending a great deal of time together, and grew very close. Ever since that week we have been nearly inseparable. I am beyond thankful that we had met each other, I do not know where I would be without any one of them. Honestly, I never thought it was possible to become as close as I am with them to anyone. Meeting them was by choice, but becoming nearly inseparable from them was doubtlessly unexpected.
Truth be told: college classes, let alone instructors, are nothing like they were in high school. Most college instructors have very high expectations for their students, and will not ‘spoon-feed’ you like instructors in high school might have done. On my very first day of college classes, I was intimidated by almost everything. I thought to myself, “I have no idea how I am ever going to survive this semester.” If I said my first semester was a piece of cake, then that would be a complete and total lie. I constantly had papers and assignments to work on, not to mention exams every 2-3 weeks to study for. Between schoolwork, clubs, a part-time job and volunteering, I am surprised that I did not burn out several times. I never expected college to be a balancing act, but I managed to survive my first semester with a 4.0 GPA despite all of my doubts.
Life has definitely taken me through many encounters, and throughout my college experience I have learned something I wish I would have known in the past. College has actually taught me something quite simple: expect the unexpected. I had never expected to make three of my closest friends here, let alone pull through my first semester the way I had. Although I had never expected these things to happen to me at the time they had occurred, I learned from them to expect the unexpected for the future. If we are always making our own expectations about what we expect for the future, then how are we going to know when to let life teach us and surprise us? The truth is, we will not know if we are always expecting the expected, and we may eventually regret this. Trust me, expecting the unexpected will make a difference in your outlook on life. After all, we never know where life is going to take us each day until we live it.