#12: Some Lessons From College I Learned the Hard Way
By Sarah Wexler
This is my last week of school. Ever.
By the time this blog is posted, I will have officially completed my MBA. Graduation is next week. Real life… shortly after that. 🫠
While my academic career is ending, I fully plan on being a forever student. Forever learning about myself, the world, and everything in between. (Hint hint: stay tuned next week when I share exactly how I plan to keep that up.)🌍📚
This week, we’re going through the lessons I learned from my college experience (the hard way). There’s more where this came from, so if want a Part 2, let me know. But for now, here are some standouts. 💌
Freshman Year
This one’s a doozy, for lack of better words. Between Covid, relationship hysterics, roommate drama, and academic struggles, 18 year-old Sarah was going through a lot. Like, a LOT. But some lessons stuck:
Some people will just not like you. And you’re actually not going to die because of that!
At 18, I genuinely thought being disliked was a fate worse than death. Obviously, we all want to be accepted—but college (and, frankly, life) teaches you that not everyone will vibe with you. Sometimes for no reason at all. And that’s not a crisis. That’s reality.
It won’t land you in the hospital. (Though, mono might :) )
If you are feeling controlled by a man, you are! GET OUTTTT🚩
Sadly, Girl usually stays longer than she should, until one day she finally can’t take it anymore. If this is you—don’t wait for your breaking point. Go now. There’s light on the other side, I PROMISE.
Your first breakup will feel like death. If death was an emotion.
Distract yourself as much as you can. That’s all I can really say. Also Oreos.
Sophomore Year
Your body’s health is more important than your body’s appearance.
For my full rant on this, see Blog #2. (Yes, I’ve gone off about this before. Yes, it still matters.)
TL;DR: You are beautiful—even when you don’t feel like it. But seriously, go read the full thing.
Sophomore year was the year I treated my body like garbage and I honestly really regret it. I’m talking: showing up to a frat party with a 100-degree fever, and calling it “rallying.”
Babe, it’s not rallying. It’s mental illness wearing a Shein shirt and Air Forces 1s. Go home.
Junior Year
Don’t stay in boyfriendland.
Your first real “adult” relationship will feel all-consuming. You’ll romanticize every little thing. You’ll convince yourself you’re growing together when really… you might just be orbiting around him/her.
I don’t regret the relationship. But I do regret how I let my own life and my own friendships fade to the background. I missed out on so many girl dinners, dumb Target runs, and late-night gossip sessions because I was too busy being someone’s “person.”
Also don’t even want to KNOW how much better my grades would have been.
Senior Year
Look at your bad habits in the eye
In college, your bad habits will be rewarded. They become funny anecdotes during the morning debrief, an outrageous Snapchat private story post that people get a kick out of.
But it gets to a point where it’s not cute or funny anymore. It’s just… embarrassing.
It’s way too easy to ignore your problems. But when you ignore your toxic patterns, they don’t go away—they just dig in deeper.
You find yourself repeating something that’s holding you back? Look at it. Name it. Face it. Before it causes even more damage.
Graduate Year
It’s not up to you to make people stay.
Going through college was a lot about learning my worth. My worth as a friend, a woman, a person in society, and as me. The caveat for finally learning your worth is the confusion and pain when other people don’t see it.
We often base some or most of our worth on how others treat us. But sometimes those people leave. The people that once validated your worth are now the ones making you question it.
Call it a learning experience, a psycological test,. Hell, call it trauma. But NEVER beg people to stay. NEVER beg people to treat you better. NEVER sacrifice your dignity for anyone.
Your worth, your identity, your dignity? Yeah. That’s all on you.
Final Thoughts
It’s easy to look back at my college years and see all of these lessons as mistakes. But to erase your mistakes would be to erase you. And I think you’re pretty great. 💖
College held the best times of my life and the worst. The highest highs, the lowest lows, and a lot of alcohol in between.
The real loss isn’t messing up—it’s not learning from it. Every cringe moment, every wrong turn, every emotional breakdown in the dorm bathroom was a chance to become a better, more self-aware version of myself.
Here’s to Binghamton University—my greatest enemy for the past five years, but the one that somehow turned me into a semi-decent adult. To the late nights studying (or drinking), to the exams I swore would end my career, to the panicked phone calls to my mom saying I had to drop out…
I did it.
This Weeks Song: You’re On Your Own Kid — Taylor Swift
