My First Semester at IUPUI

I did not have the normal college experience. To start out, most people don't have their own bathroom in their dormitory, but I was very lucky to make it onto the Honors Floor with my scholarship stipend. However, my luck ran out. I have some pretty severe food and environmental allergies, so it made living in the dorms and going from class to class very hard for me. Twice this semester, I ended up in the emergency room. This led to me having to completely change the way I did college. I couldn't eat in the dining hall, so I had to find different ways to get food without access to my own kitchen. It was not safe for me in the dorms, so I had to move off campus and into the home of a long-time family friend. I went from an on-campus, completely in-person student to a commuter who is taking mostly online classes next year.

 

However, I do feel like in my first semester of being on campus, I got to learn a lot. I know so much more about the resources IUPUI has to help its students with issues like housing and the dining hall. I learned that I have to fight to receive the same education as everyone else because there are so many more barriers and hoops that I have to go through in order to be safe. I also learned that you become a bit of a celebrity when you get rushed out of the classroom and into an ambulance from Cavanaugh Hall, even more so when you meet your fans in the elevator after walking back from the ER.

 

 I was just barely eighteen when I first arrived on campus, but I really have changed a lot in these short few months. I've learned that I can be loud and speak up about things such as my allergies or a professor not using their own syllabus correctly. I learned that you really do need a good connection with your peers and your professors if you want anything to change or something new to happen. I also learned that even though I'm really bad at speaking up for myself, the fact that I'm trying gets a lot of attention and other people don't think I'm that bad at it at all. I'm not grateful that I have so many allergies and that my situation on campus got all wonky, but I am grateful that I was able to learn and grow from it. I feel much more confident in my ability to take care of myself after college since I was able to handle things like going to the emergency room fairly well.

 

The biggest thing that I took away from my first semester at IUPUI and what I want other students to realize is that everyone is in a similar boat to you. The details might not line up exactly and some people might feel it more severely, but everyone feels out of their element.  Everyone is learning how to sort through and organize their syllabi for classes. Everyone is learning how to talk to their professors and build up the courage to go to the bathroom without asking. Everyone is wondering "How on Earth am I supposed to write three essays for one class when I have all of these other things to do?" Everyone is working on balancing a social life and school and work. Everyone is trying to figure out how doctors work now that Mom and Dad are so far away. While everyone might not be in the emergency room when they are trying to figure it out, everyone is still trying to figure out how to be an adult, and that's ok.

 

Despite what the law says, no one becomes an adult overnight. You have to wait at least until your insurance rate drops to really feel like an adult. However, even adults who have been adults for longer than I have been alive are still trying to figure it out. In the great words of Eleanor Shellstrop, "Pody's Nerfect," and I think that everyone should take that to heart. No one has all the answers, and that's ok. Sometimes, there flat out isn't an answer, you just have to find what works. Going into my second semester, I really need to remember that and also try to think about how I might not have all the answers, but I can definitely try to get all the tools at my disposal together to make up my own answer.