Karly Imaizumi
Professor Goldner
English 214
November 3, 2014

Growing up in my own personal bubble full of love and stability in sunny San Diego, California to then living in a double bedroom dorm with girls I knew nothing about 500 miles away from home was one of the hardest, most eye opening experience of my life. San Francisco State University was not only where I plan I planned to get my degree but it is where I planed to really find myself and evolve into the person I want to be. College is definitely a learning experience, both academically and socially dealing with the independence of living on your own and having to adjust to people with different up brings. Living outside of my usual element where everyone is in relatively the same social class doing all the same things to really allowing myself to open up to different lifestyles and become more self-aware of the people around me.
My first year of college was one of the best years of my life. It is the time when young adults break off their parental leash and set free to roam the outside world. For many students, this is the first time they are living on their own and fending for themselves, they are no longer forced to go to class, have dinner already prepared for them on a silver platter, or have to worry about rules such as curfew. With so much freedom, kids tend to lose sight of their priorities and as to why they are in college in the first place, to get an education. The temptation to go out and party leaves some students struggling to pass their classes. I have seen this type of downward spiral firsthand, my roommate, Dre came to college with a 4.0 grade point average to failing classes and forced to withdraw the fall semester of her second year. With Dre being from the valley of Los Angeles and me from the suburbs of San Diego, we had a hard time adjusting to one another’s lifestyles. Dre attended a private high school where everyone knew each other since they were in Kindergarten making everyone feel entitled to know everyone else’s personal business. Being from a large public high school with hundreds of students coming from all different middle schools, I wasn’t use to this sort to openness. Dre is a very narrow-minded individual so when things didn’t go her way, she tends to cop an attitude which later turned into a full-blown argument. In the beginning I was always walking on eggshells trying not to irritate Dre or make her mad in order to avoid an argument but after a while I realized we only did things she liked to do and after that I knew something had to change. I learned not to entertain her attitude and live for myself because I cannot constantly be worrying about someone else’s feelings and needing approval from her to do what I want to do. Things only got worse when Dre started drinking and partying with me and some friends a couple times a week but slowly I started to see her becoming reckless to the point where she would fight the people trying to help her she would forget the morning making it a recurring issue. I have never had an incidence where my friend has tried to physically put their hands on me and so I took a step back to really reevaluate the situation and realized by me letting this problem continue this ongoing cycle, I’m allowing it to be okay. I confronted her about the situation and from that day forward she had been keeping herself under control. But by this point, Dre had lost all ambition and missed so many classes to pass due to one reason or another and had to withdraw from San Francisco State and move back home. Being a