the connell waldron college experience

I’ve been a Marianne throughout all my years in school. When I tried to be a Connell in high school it failed greatly for me (and everyone involved). Which made me spend my last two years of high school back as a Marianne. Now I am a Connell in college. I start my second semester of college next week which is about the time one starts their reread their copy of Normal People by Sally Rooney again—and re-watching the Hulu Series. It devastates me whenever I think about both Marianne and Connell. I don’t know why I’d thought I could have a Marianne mindset about college. Marianne, entering college, planned that she’d start fresh. Marianne would finally get to live the life she wasn’t living in back home. I’m not clear on why I thought I definitely have this exact “fresh start” when I am scared of putting myself out in the world and not much of a sociable person either.

Truthfully college makes me a bit sad—like I don't know what I'm doing. This is the time where every five minutes— the thought pops up in your head, “I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't know what I want anymore!" Then the student is given a project, which makes them rediscover why they love their major in the first place. It makes it more upsetting when there’s is nothing outside of school and work for me (friend-wise). When you are working four or sometimes eight hours, six days a week, while also shuffling school—and suffocating school projects. This college life is very hard. Now the time has come again, the one that will continue for the next three years—well, I think I need to sail away from the Normal People universe, it’s making me deeply sad and insecure (more than I usually am).