April 11, 2021

A Letter to My August Self

By Abigail Peacock

Your freshman year isn’t going to be what you thought it would. You won’t be waking up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning to tailgate before a football game. You’re not going to sit in a lecture hall with 300 other students and talk to your new friends during breaks in lecture. You won’t get to visit sorority houses in person during recruitment and face the excitement of meeting other girls in line as you nervously fix your hair and makeup.

In April 2021, your last month of your freshman year, you still won’t have stepped  foot in the Big House. You’ll only have had a handful of visits to the chemistry labs. But you’re going to have a Michigan experience unique to only your class.

You’ll learn to love Markley. You’ll meet your second semester roommates when you give them hair bleaching tips at 3am in the dingy bathroom. The roaches you see in the stairwells will live as a hilarious shared experience with every resident in the dorm. You’re going to look back upon your three months there with wistful nostalgia.

You’re going to sign your first lease for an apartment you found all on your own. With this, you’ll start to feel more like an adult than you ever have as you when you buy your own groceries and cook meals for your roommates. You’re going to get to know three of your closest friends in a way you never thought you would. Best of all, you’ll have the wonderful responsibility of living among friends. 

Your online classes will be difficult to adjust to. You’re going to learn the hard way how important it is to keep up with your pre recorded lectures. And you’ll certainly have a few mental breakdowns because of organic chemistry.

You’re going to be surprised by how hard your classes are. There will be moments where the imposter syndrome threatens to send you off the deep end; there will also be assignments that you turn in with pride.

Your freshman year at Michigan will be completely different from what you expected, and it’s going to be all the better because of that. You’re going to grow more than you ever have in the span of seven months. In August, you feel like a girl. In April, you’ll feel like a young woman.

Edited By Brooke Star