Honest reflections on my junior year at Princeton
Junior year was really not what I expected it to be. Coming back from my gap year, I had all these ideas about what I wanted to do differently, and how I would make the most of my time and get a lot out of being back at Princeton. In some ways, that did happen. I took some great classes that I was actually interested in and tried things that I wouldn't have otherwise tried. But after my first semester back, I felt that I had lost a lot of the personal and mental growth that I had made during my time off, and I felt incredibly lonely. It seemed unthinkable that I would end up feeling more lonely in a school full of 5000 people my own age, than in the cities full of strangers that I lived in during my time off. In January, I felt really lonely. I felt like I did my first semester all wrong, and I should have focused more on socializing and making friends and strengthening friendships. When I opened up to other people about this, I found out that I wasn't alone in feeling this way