College is a long arduous process, it’s one we entered into voluntarily but I don’t think we really understood how much it could actually take out of us. There is no easy way, there just isn’t and that’s part of life. That there are struggles and differences in acceptance and learning styles of people that you have to overcome, you may love all your professors as people (it’s so fun and adorable to find out professors are married to other professors, whether they’re in the same department or across campus) and more.

It took me and my future housemates, four months, two hundred and thirty Facebook messages, and one encounter with a crotchety landlord to find a place to live for next semester. We settled on Trimble Hall and I signed my contract on Monday, Feb. 23rd. Somehow we bypassed the housing lottery. I think it’s because we’re juniors. It was a sunny day and the tulips were starting to wink up out of the ground. I breathed a sigh of relief when I walked out of the student development building. The entire process had felt like Sisyphus and the boulder. I’d send out half a dozen messages trying to get one option lined up and then things would change and I’d have to start all over again from the bottom of the hill. That day I finally got to put down the boulder.

It had started innocently enough with a “Hey, would you like to live together next semester” and quickly developed into “I contacted the guy with the house with laundry and he said the rent was 1095 for three people. This would be 365 per month for each of us for 12 months which comes to 4380.” The guy with the laundry turned out to be a no go. Hint: when you ask the tenant if the landlord is easy to work with and he says “you’re very funny” this is not a good sign. This landlord eventually berated me for talking too long to the tenant and would not accept an apology. He wouldn’t even look at me when I left and frankly I wasn’t too sorry to be leaving him either.

It turns out that the process for finding off campus housing starts insanely early. Begin at least a month earlier than you think you need to. When my friends and I started looking for housing it was October/November. It turns out you should start at the beginning of the semester. The first idea I had of this was when one of my co-workers said that she was getting ready to sign a lease.

My friends and I ended up in an on-campus five person suite. Once we got everything together this arrangement took about five minutes to finalize. There will be a fridge, single rooms, and a couch to collapse on while we do our homework. I’m relatively low maintenance. My cooking skills extend to chicken, pasta, and pushing buttons on the microwave. So this will work just fine. All I will ask is that my roommates keep the place clean and the noise level down after ten pm. If they can’t manage this…well, that’ll be another boulder. I’ll be sure to start early.

I am really bad at talking to people. So networking events and career fairs are like my personal armageddon. As you can guess I ended up attending a career fair this week as part of my never ending search for a summer internship (I have spent too many nights obsessing over the correct usage of a comma on my cover letters).

I arrived at the SUB which was where the fair was happening, checked in, and wandered around for ten minutes trying to work up the courage to talk to a recruiter. I found it very intimidating and was very nervous. I actually spent a lot of time talking to my fellow classmates in the beginning and learned some new names.

Finally, with the encouragement of a friend I walked up to the Amazon table. The conversation with the recruiter went really well and was very interesting. I was like ‘yeah, this is going so well’. And, maybe it was because the room was hot and there were photography lights flashing to my left and I was nervous or I don’t even know that caused me to faint. Yep, I fainted. In front of many people. People i may want to work for/with. It was MORTIFYING. I will cringe about this experience 50 years from now. I am still cringing about it even as I type these words.

Everyone was really nice and concerned. All the fainting stories I was told made me feel a little better. And I was able to joke that I was so excited about Amazon that I fainted. After assuring everyone that i was fine and indeed was not  a fainting sheep in disguise I quickly made my rounds at other tables and left.

My first career fair definitely was not boring. Though I lost some dignity, I gained a lot of experience about how to talk to professionals about my interests and the career I want. the fair was worth it.