Jayla Beechaum

Being able to get into the swing of classes hasn’t really been hard for me. I’ve just been struggling with taking time to manage my assignments and my social life.

I have definitely fallen in love with all of my classes and professors. They have given me so much insight and have encouraged me to get organized.

I also enjoy hanging out with friends and getting involved with stuff happening on campus. Since the second week of classes, I have been planning out my day on a white board—that way I never forget an assignment, test, paper or even a social event. It’s little things like that help with time management.

I find that it is easy to forget stuff and completely fall behind. So I would advise you to write it ALL down in a planner or on a white board like me.

As the season begins to change and upcoming holidays approach, we wanted to be the cheerful part of the third floor of our hall.

Laya, Lauren and I had a blast decorating our dorm room door. We ran to Walmart grabbing everything that we felt was fall. As we picked up all of our door decorations, we joked and played around getting lots of ideas.

When we came back to the dorm to decorate, we played our music. We sang with no thought of being too loud. Everyone could hear us laughing and our jokes. They got curious and came out into the hall. They stood around watching and eating snacks like we were performing in a full show. They kept saying, “That’s so cool and cute.”

The other people on our floor were so inspired by our little door that we happened to set a trend of door decorating. We even encouraged a door-decorating contest for Halloween.

I guess it’s stuff like that gets you comfortable with dorm life. This little thing we did for fun definitely helped us get used to the people around us and to make new friends. It was great because living away from home takes time to get used to.

 

A planned roommate assignment wasn’t exactly what I wanted when I thought about going to college—but it was honestly well worth it.

I remember walking in on move-in day. I looked up and saw her right beside me signing her name. She waved at me and I smiled. I had so many expectations. Some were good but mostly bad.

I feared that this roommate assignment was going to change my experience at Longwood. In my head, I figured that she was going to be a strange person that I would have to share the same space with. I automatically was pessimistic and knew it was going to suck. I worried that she was going to be mean and a control freak. I really thought my first roommate was going to be a horror story because that’s what so many people told me.

But, after that first day, I knew it was a blessing.

My roommate, Laya, is absolutely the best. It seemed like the more we talked and hung out—things just clicked. One day we stayed up all night doing our hair. We laughed uncontrollably. We kept saying over and over again that we were a perfect match.

This has truly been a BLESSING.