Personal Narrative: My First Year At Southeastern

During my first year at Southeastern, I was not sure that this was a real college experience. A little about my background; I came from a high school not much smaller than Southeastern. It was a popular public high school, where parties were wild and drugs and alcohol were present in many of the students lives. Anyways, media portrays college as a big party, “the best years of your life.” Therefore, coming to Southeastern was a little bit of a culture shock, there are not wild parties, and no drugs or alcohol present. Nevertheless, I was not looking to go to a big party school, but I was not expecting college to feel like I was somewhat separated from reality. It took a fair amount of time for me to be completely adjusted to the culture of
It was a very intense surgery, and I was unable to play after it. This was another culture shock. My life felt like it had stopped because I was no longer able to say I am a high performance athlete. At that time I was unsure if I could even call myself an athlete. I never acknowledged pain until that point, so immediately I questioned both my physical and mental strength. I had to restart my life, I had to decide who I really wanted to be. But, I was not ready to give up. I tried with great effort to play again, going to every practice, going to physical therapy two, sometimes three times a day. I ended up hurting my elbow and having to go through more physical therapy and had the possibility of another surgery if I kept trying to play. Finally, I accepted that my playing career was over. I was able to remain apart of my high school team as a student coach. I never knew how selfish I was when I was playing. I felt like I was on a new team, meeting these girls for the first time. God works in amazing ways, even though it took physical pain for me to stop and realize what I was doing. I am so blessed that he gave me the opportunity to influence, and mentor these