This is a guest blog by Carmen Bunker - Senior student at Washington and Lee University. As some of you are preparing to go back to school - or are starting out for the first time - here's an honest insight into what you can expect during your first year, and how Student Beans is here to support
Dear freshman: a few thoughts on the year you’re about to have
The first few weeks are a blur. Meeting people, finding your classes, pretending you know where the dining hall is. You survive it, somehow, running on adrenaline and freebies from every club table you walk past.
For a while, it feels like you’ve got all the time in the world. “Sophomore year” feels like some far-off hypothetical future. Then, without any warning, it’s May, and you’re standing there thinking: wait, how am I not a freshman anymore?
That’s the thing about this year. It moves slow enough that you don’t notice it happening, and fast enough that by the time you look up, you’ve turned into someone a little different than the person who showed up in August.
Fall: The Homesickness Stretch
After the rush of starting college, homesickness sneaks in.
Around this time, you’ll start to miss your pet, your parents’ cooking, even your own shower. The little things you never thought twice about suddenly feel very far away. It really hits when Thanksgiving break gets close.
Going home is exciting. It means a lot, both to you and to the people waiting for you. Here’s a little secret a lot of people forget: calling home is easy, and it means more than you’d think, on both ends. It’s a small habit that makes “home” feel a lot closer than it actually is.
This is also the stretch where your people start to find you. Somewhere between orientation chaos and Thanksgiving, a real friend group starts forming, not the “everyone in my hallway” group from week one, but the smaller crew who actually gets you. You won’t clock it happening in the moment. You’ll just look up one day and realize you have people to sit with, which, it turns out, was the whole assignment.
Winter: The Tiredness Slump
After Thanksgiving, it’s a straight sprint to winter break, and somewhere along the way it’s your first-ever finals week. It is, hands down, the most stressed you’ll be all semester.
The good news: everyone around you is drowning in the exact same way. Those study groups and friend groups you built? You will lean on them like never before, and it will feel a little bit like a support group but with more pens and highlighters.
Around this time, your body starts to feel tired. In the blink of an eye, four months have gone by of you meeting people, picking classes, figuring out who’s a friend versus an acquaintance, or what party to go to. That adds up in a way regular tiredness doesn’t. It just sucks when it hits during finals week.
Then you go home for a month, and something weirder happens: you slide back into your old habits, but it feels slightly off. Your hometown moved on without you a little. You don’t feel fully unpacked, mostly because you’re not. Half of your stuff is still in a suitcase, and the sweater you actually wanted is back in your dorm. It’s a strange, low-grade limbo, and then just as you’re used to your old room again, it’s time to go back.
Spring: The Confidence Turn
By spring, something’s shifted, and you might not even notice until either a friend or your parents point it out. You survived a whole semester.
You know where key places are without having to look up a map. You’ve picked out a solid study spot on campus. You could also be planning a spring break trip with people you thought you would never meet.
There’s usually a small moment where it all clicks. This could mean you raise your hand in a giant lecture hall for the first time, or you walk into a party and know most of the people there, or you handle a bad grade without spiraling like you would’ve done in October. It’s not a movie-montage transformation. It's more like a really long time-lapse. Mostly it just feels like: oh, I’ve got this now.
Don’t get too confident though; you may walk into the wrong lecture hall and not realize it till you’re halfway through.
Looking back
Boom! It’s May. The person who showed up terrified in August with too many suitcases is not quite the same person leaving campus for the summer. You’re a little more sure of yourself, a little more capable of handling things solo, and a lot more used to making decisions that used to belong to your parents.
A few thoughts that helped me get there, for what it’s worth: keep a hobby that has nothing to do with your GPA. Bring snacks from home, you will crave it at 11pm on a Tuesday night.
Always look for student discounts. Apps like Student Beans or Amazon Prime Student are basically free money for broke college students. Freshman year is expensive in ways nobody warns you about, so take the win where you can get it. Those laundry days or coffee runs add up pretty quickly.
Now it’s time to pack up your first dorm, and when you come back, you’ll be a sophomore. You’ll be ready in a way you couldn’t have been in August, and that’s really the whole point of this year.
P.S. Keep snacks in your bag. You’ll thank me later.
What is Student Beans and how can we help?
Starting your first year is exciting, but it's also the year your budget gets tested the most — new textbooks, new city, new social life, and a lot of new costs.
That's where Student Beans comes in. It's a free platform that gives students access to exclusive discounts from thousands of big-name brands across fashion, tech, food, travel and beyond — you just need to verify your student status, which takes about a minute.
To help you kit out your first year without breaking the bank, we've pulled together our Back to School collections, covering everything from Fashion essentials for your new wardrobe, Tech picks for must-have gadgets, to Life & Wellness picks for looking after yourself while you settle in — plus loads more across the site.
Download the app, verify your student status, and start saving from day one.
Unlock even more with Student Beans
All your favourite brands at your fingertips, from fashion and beauty to food and drink, available to college and uni students aged 16 and over. Dive into our blog to find tips and advice to help you navigate student life, from applying to college to life after graduation.
- Sign up for a Student Beans account or log in to start saving on the biggest and best brands.
- Download the Student Beans app to unlock exclusive app-only discounts.
