At the end of my first year at William Jewell College, I wrote an advice piece for The Hilltop Monitor titled “Things I learned as a first-year.”  Two short, strange years later and I’m finishing my last year at Jewell. Here are some things I’ve learned this year. 

Quit stressing about “the plan” 

Even plans that seem concrete can go awry. My plan was to study at The University of Oxford my junior year and then spend my senior year at Jewell. Then, a global pandemic happened. I, instead, have spent my junior year completing all of my senior coursework in preparation for spending my senior year of college abroad. 

My plan to go to Oxford as a junior felt concrete at the time. However, no plan is permanent. This fact can be stressful, but it can also be liberating. 

If all plans can change, there’s no reason to stress about creating the perfect post-graduation career plan. There’s no reason to feel locked into decisions you’ve made for your life. The majority of decisions are reversible. The next time someone makes you feel insecure for not having life figured out, remember that it is impossible for anyone to have life figured out. Adaptability is a crucial life skill. 

There is no perfect college experience 

Sometimes, I feel like I only got three semesters of a real college experience. This feeling rests on a false assumption that the ideal college experience exists. 

Pandemic or not, every person’s experience at college will be unique to them. It is impossible to replicate someone else’s college experience. Just because you did not have the perfect internship or all in-person classes does not mean you didn’t have a valuable college experience. I learned that my years at Jewell were never going to be exactly what I expected, regardless of the pandemic. The best experiences are unexpected. 

Missed opportunities lead to unexpected ones 

While I was disappointed to not go to Oxford my junior year, missing out on this opportunity allowed me to have so many other wonderful experiences. 

I got to spend another year at Jewell with older friends who would have graduated by the time I came back to the United States. I spent a year playing tennis for Jewell, a chance I never thought I would have. I lived close to home for the first year of my nephew’s life. I took fascinating classes I never would have taken otherwise. 

While it’s easy to focus on the experiences we missed out on, it’s important to remember the experiences we gained. Over quarantine, I took the time to write a poem everyday, one of which got included in a community poem created by NPR. Despite the horrors of the pandemic, looking back I know I’ll never regret the time I spent with my immediate family when I lived at home over quarantine. I may not have been traveling the world, but I still made amazing memories. 

Take the time to enjoy the people around you 

My first year of college, I often confined myself to the silent floor of the Pryor Learning Commons to do homework. I had an excellent work ethic and would say no to hanging out with friends to finish assignments. This year, I refocused my priorities. 

School is important to me, but I’ve learned that relationships are more important. I might work better on the quiet floor of the PLC, but the benefits are not worth missing out on studying with friends. The time we get with the people we care about is limited. Don’t feel guilty for putting off an assignment to have a good conversation with a friend. Life gets its meaning from relationships. 

The effects of affirmation are short-lived

I have always been a good student. I tend to get positive feedback from my teachers and peers. The downside to this is that my self-esteem is a little too reliant on this reinforcement. I know many Jewell students are also achievement-driven.

The problem with being reliant on positive affirmation is that it forces us to set  unachievable standards for ourselves. It is good to want to always better yourself but you can’t base your whole identity on markers of success. College taught me that even after you win an award or get a good grade, you don’t feel any different. The happiness from achieving something wears off quicker each time. 

Instead, it’s important to find confidence internally, rather than externally. Just because others are not validating the work you are doing does not mean it is bad work – and doing good work does not have to be your ultimate goal. Find confidence in your strength, your adaptability and your compassion. 

Intelligence is fake 

My first year of college, I did not believe I was smart enough for a lot of my classes. I felt like I had fooled my professors into giving me good grades – maybe out of pity, maybe just because I was good at faking intelligence. What I was actually experiencing was imposter syndrome, which disproportionately affects women and makes people falsely believe they are not qualified enough for an opportunity. 

In my last year of college, I became convinced that intelligence is not as important as I once thought. I no longer believe that people are significantly smarter or less smart than I am. We all have had different opportunities to learn about different research, ideas and skills. Our brains might process information in a variety of ways, but that does not mean one brain is superior to another. 

College has made me confident that I can learn anything. If you would have told my first-year self that I would be able to take an exam that required me to write ten pages over six texts in four hours without any notes, I would have been shocked. Now, I’ve completed seven of those exams. With the right instruction and enough motivation, you could too. 

If I can drive on I-35, you can do anything 

In my advice column I wrote as a first-year, I mentioned that I was still trying to learn how to drive in downtown Kansas City. I used to add an extra fifteen minutes to my drive home by avoiding I-35 because of one bad experience.  I am happy to say that I now feel confident driving downtown.

While driving downtown may feel insignificant to some people, it was scary for me. There may be things that scare you that other people conquer easily. Don’t let others’ ideas of what is hard and what is easy invalidate your fears – and don’t let your fears stop you from trying new experiences. Do a meditation, say a prayer if you’re the praying type and buckle your seatbelt. No matter what the future has in store, you can handle it. 

Maddie Wingert, senior non-profit leadership and communication major, will attend the  Washington University School of Law in St. Louis this fall. Alongside an acceptance rate of just 14%, Washington University is ranked 16th in U.S. News’ 2022 list of best law schools. 

Wingert did not decide to go to law school until her junior year at William Jewell College. 

“I’ve always wanted to work with a non-profit and a lot of my internships I had I really liked, but I realized that’s not really the kind of work I want to do with a non-profit,” Wingert said. “I talked with my professors and my parents and I realized that law school was the right path.”  

After law school, Wingert said she plans on going into human rights or public interest law. 

At Jewell, Wingert was a member of the volleyball team, a Pryor fellow and a member of Alpha Gamma Delta sorority. She said these activities helped her become more confident. 

“I’m still shy, but I was really shy in high school and Jewell forced me out of my shell,” Wingert said. “I’ve had a lot of opportunities that I didn’t expect and I think that’s part of the reason that I am going to law school.” 

She said the most difficult part about Jewell has been the Critical Thought and Inquiry courses, which have made her think differently about complex topics. Her favorite course was CTI 240: “Reading the Bible: Then and Now” with Bradley Chance, professor of Core Curriculum. 

While Wingert missed out on experiences due to restrictions from the pandemic, she said the extra free time helped her make the fateful decision to go to law school. Despite the restrictions, however, she said she is satisfied with how Jewell adapted. 

“It’s definitely been different, and it stinks that we missed out on things, but it’s cool to see how Jewell has adapted,” Wingert said. “I still had a lot of in-person classes and we get [to bring] guests for graduation.” 

Wingert said she will miss the people at Jewell, yet she is ultimately looking forward to the change. 

“I am excited to move to St. Louis because I’m from the Kansas City area so I’ve always been around here,” Wingert said. “I’m so excited to see something new and be on my own.”

I had a meeting with one of my favorite professors a few weeks ago. We started the meeting with the usual pleasantries and questions about how things are going. I told her they were going surprisingly well. I was ahead of schedule on multiple projects, had just gotten a good grade on a paper and was balancing being a student-athlete with the workload of senior-level courses. 

About ten minutes later I was crying on our Zoom call. She mentioned my plans to study at the University of Oxford next year – something I was supposed to do this school year – and I expressed my nervousness about the pandemic changing my plans again. Suddenly, I went from happily discussing how well I was managing this year to watching tears stream down my face on my Zoom camera. Watching yourself cry in real-time is one feature of Zoom I would have preferred to never find out existed. 

I thought that I was fine and then I wasn’t. I kept myself so busy this year that I managed to ignore that this pandemic doesn’t have an end date. In fact, I blocked most things about the pandemic out of my mind. I think we all have – it’s one of the only ways to cope. 

“This clearly has been bothering you,” my professor said in our meeting. It was clear to her that this year has caused me some anxiety, even though it hadn’t been clear to me.

I can remember telling my family how surprisingly normal school was when the year started. I’ve been living with my friends, spending days studying at the PLC and attending my classes. I’ve been sleeping the appropriate amount and eating the appropriate amount and getting good grades. My immediate family is healthy and fully vaccinated. By all indications, I am fine. 

I’ve been so fine that when I hear people talking about how professors should give students more grace this year, I’ve rolled my eyes a little. Sure, we’re in a pandemic, but haven’t we all figured this out by now? Shouldn’t we toughen up and get over it? Isn’t the stress we’re feeling just normal school stress? 

The thing is, it’s not normal to cry on a Zoom call over whether or not I will eventually get to study abroad, something that is a foundational part of the rigorous program I’ve spent the past three years working so hard to complete. It’s not normal to stress about if I’ll get quarantined for my final few weeks at Jewell. It’s not normal to worry about how the only time I could schedule my second vaccine is twenty-four hours before I take the biggest test of my college career and debate whether or not I’ll be too sick. 

I recently had a panic attack, another thing that is not normal for me. I had just sent an email to a group of professors regarding a project for The Hilltop Monitor. I started shaking and my vision went blurry. I was spiraling, and for the next twenty-four hours I was physically sick with anxiety. My panic attack was about more than just sending an email.

This year I felt painfully vulnerable every time I turned in an assignment or emailed a professor. My classes all require me to constantly write and present my ideas to then be critiqued, which I usually enjoy. I spent more time worrying that my words were embarrassing or unintelligent this year. I think education is something incredibly personal, and it requires a level of vulnerability. It’s hard to be vulnerable with people who you only interact with through a computer screen. I struggle with how impersonal and isolating my education has become.

All of my classes are virtual. Sometimes, I feel like my professors are not even real people, just email addresses and accounts on Zoom. I wonder if they feel the same way about me. I used to stop by their offices or hang around class a little longer if I had a question or just wanted to talk. Now, I debate if my question is worth typing up an email and scheduling a Zoom meeting. Most of the time, it isn’t. 

The other day, I realized that it had been over a year since I had seen any of my English professors. Throughout my college career, I have written hundreds of pages of my thoughts for these professors to read. They’ve spent hours writing feedback on these pages. They’ve had a profound impact on me, and I’ve grown so much as a person and a student because of them. Last March was probably the last time in my life I will ever see any of them.

Our professors are doing the best they can to make sure we have a positive college experience while being safe. For me, it has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. I am learning and making memories with friends. I am doing just as well in my classes as I always have. I know my professors are always there for me – it might just not be in person. It’s not their fault that students feel disconnected, but that doesn’t mean the disconnection isn’t difficult. College during COVID-19 is difficult for us all. 

If you’re feeling unmotivated or unsupported or just sad, it’s okay. It’s normal. Being a college student is harder this year, even if you get so absorbed with survival that you forget. Just because you appear to be doing well doesn’t mean things aren’t tough. Give yourself grace. 

“This has clearly been bothering you,” my professor told me as we talked to each other through a computer screen.

Whether you realize it or not, this pandemic has probably been bothering you, too. I felt a lot better once I was able to identify the emotional toll of virtual learning. Processing the impact this year had on us won’t be easy, but it’s going to be an important part of moving forward.