College is meant to be uncomfortable

Learning Through Regret: My Biggest Lessons From College By Mariel McDonald

^{Photo Credit: Raven Roberts}

College is considered by many to be the best time of your life, and my time at Tuskegee University proved to be just that. I met great people from varying backgrounds, made progress in areas of my career, and created memories that I will cherish forever.

But it wasn’t always fun. In addition to the joy, there was also pain. For me, and many others, college is the most transformative experience to date. In 4 years, your self-concept and values are challenged and changed. The life lessons learned in college aren’t always from blissful joy, but painful regrets.

The Wonder Years

For half of my college career, I let fear control most aspects of my life, and it prevented me from having what I deem to be the “full” college experience: strong friendships, self-exploration, having fun, healthy relationships, etc. Ironically, these were the things I looked forward to when I first got to college, but the uncertainty that these situations wouldn’t go exactly according to plan and my need to therefore control such scenarios made me self-sabotage.

When I thought of college as an incoming freshman, I thought of it as a place where young women met and bonded through the mishaps of their youth to become lifelong friends. But when I heard of “The Great Falling Out” that happened to everyone’s freshman friend group, I was terrified. I’d always struggled with making friends, so the thought of losing any gave me a great deal of anxiety. This fear controlled my actions.

In an attempt to protect myself, I opted not to make any new friends, only remaining friends with the people I knew from high school at Tuskegee. This plan failed, of course. And when “The Great Falling Out” struck our friend group, it felt like my world had shattered.

My defenses were activated, and I began isolating myself from everyone. This counter dependency forced me to miss out on everyone and everything the university had to offer.

The entire student body felt like one big family while there, but I had excluded myself from it.

I missed out on the privilege of creating bonds with my class. I didn’t participate in most campus events, attend any of the legendary parties or enjoy the celebrations that my other classmates recount every homecoming.The very experiences I had hoped for became what I ended up avoiding. Those experiences were no longer worth it in my eyes if they meant getting hurt or rejected. But getting hurt was unavoidable, and this fact was proven by the toxic relationships I fell into around this time.

I adored A Different World and wanted a Whitley and Dwayne love story of my own. My parents’ HBCU love story made me determined to get mine. But living in that fantasy, cost me too much in the end. When the dust settled from those catastrophes, I was at rock bottom.

This served as a turning point in my life. Something had to be done if I wanted to be happy. And I made the decision that I wanted, and deserved to be happy. So I made new choices.

I began my own HBCU (self) love story, journaling and exploring my self-concept. I began dating myself, discovering new hobbies and exploring interests (no matter how weird), and it led me to find new friends. It also forced me to participate, as that was the only way to explore those new interests and hobbies.

I realized that the right people didn’t care how weird or “off” I was and that those people were worth getting to know, regardless of a possible bad outcome. Slowly, college life began resembling what I had hoped it would look like, and all it took was releasing control of what I thought it should be and just being.

Reflections

Now that I’m 2 years post-grad, I can honestly say my biggest regret is trying to avoid the unavoidable. I wasted so much of my time and energy with the mental gymnastics I went through to keep myself “safe” from getting hurt. Had I just embraced change and accepted that mistakes would be made to begin with, my life would have been much more enjoyable.

I wanted to control how my experience went for fear of it going off track. I wanted to be the master of my own universe. But I had to realize that I wasn’t going to be the master; I was the participant. Life was telling me to jump on one foot, and all I had to do was choose the left or right one. I didn’t have control over the outcome nor did I give the instruction; I was simply the doer.

When I released my need to control the situations around me, life got easier and improved greatly. I was able to recover from those first few years, with the latter being all that I had hoped. The experience I had satisfied my personal requirements for what a college experience should be. The personal lessons learned from those early years have also proven to be useful today.

Because of college, now I embrace change and handle it with ease. I feel less anxious when I think of all of life’s uncertainties because I know the outcome will be what it is meant to be regardless. Four years in college taught me that.

But I wish I would have learned it sooner. My life today would be a lot fuller if I had. The close friendships that people built in college are the ones that I am now building in my adulthood, and I will admit that it is harder to do, but it is still possible. The adult fun, although a good time, also doesn’t compare to that young-and-dumb-fun had in college that I wish I would have experienced more of.

Please make no mistake, I am thankful for how everything played out because I wouldn’t be the person I am today had it not been for those exact experiences. But when I reminisce on my time there, a large part of me dwells on the things I could’ve done differently. But we cannot change the past. We can only use what we learned to change what is happening now and in the future.

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