Hi everyone! My name is Alex Renda and I am from Naples, FL. I am a first-year Graphic Design student in Alpha Class ’21. I am on the ADPi Marketing Committee and hope to soon get involved with all of the different creative and academic opportunities both on campus and within ADPi! I love the beach, art (duh), making Spotify playlists and Pinterest boards, and coffee :) (I work at a coffee shop at home)!
At the start of my freshman year of high school, I looked at the seniors walking through the hallways, on my volleyball team, and in my classes like they were full-blown adults. I couldn’t imagine that I’d be in their place in four years, graduating and going off to college. I didn’t believe that by then, I’d have everything figured out for the next steps of my life. Little did I know that as I walked across the stage at graduation and got my diploma, I had the same feeling. I couldn’t believe that those four years had gone by so fast and that I was moving onto the “real world”. I was questioning myself and whether I had made the right choice about the school I chose and my choice to not commit somewhere to play volleyball. I looked at the freshman on my last few days of high school and reminisced on the days of having no responsibilities. I reflected on how I was supposed to be the idea of a full-blown adult that freshman-year-me had. Man, was I wrong, because I felt FAR from it.
At the start of my freshman year of college, I arrived at the University of Florida and joined the 35,000 students on campus- which was significantly scarier than being with the 1,800 students from Naples that I was familiar with. I thought about my freshman-year-of-highschool self and my senior-year-of-highschool self simultaneously and decided that while it may seem new and scary now, it will soon become familiar and fly by. Thus began my first semester at UF that started with recruitment and ended with becoming a member of ADPi!
Now, with three months left of freshman year, I find myself reflecting on how different I feel now than how my freshman-year-of-highschool self and my senior-year-of-highschool self felt at this time of year. Instead of thinking about how far away I am from getting my degree, I am thinking more about how to live in the moment and how fast the year has already flown by! ADPi has made the big, scary size of our school, which was once intimidating, so much smaller. Just knowing that I’m surrounded by such ambitious, intelligent, and confident women has not only made me comfortable coming to college, but it has also made me confident in myself. I am forever grateful for the friendships and opportunities I have so far made in ADPi and can’t wait for more!
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