It was just weeks into the semester when Heath Rickenbach realized things weren’t the way they used to be.
Classes are harder this year. Friends are gone, scattered around the world studying abroad. People are applying for internships and getting jobs. It’s all so different.
Days before his third round of final exams, Rickenbach sits in the Russell House Starbucks, his long legs tucked under a table for two.
“We’re already a year through, and we’re on our second,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. “After this year, we’ll be halfway done.”
The second-year physics student is halfway through his second year of college. He’s one semester into being a Resident Mentor. He’s days away from winter break.
And he’s questioning everything.
UNDERGRADUATE CATASTROPHE
If you aren’t familiar with the mid-college crisis, yours may not have hit yet. Or perhaps you breezed through your first few years of college, sans freak-out.
Urban Dictionary will tell you it’s “the state of being in which a 2nd year college student still feels completely lost and attempts to re-examine the meaning of one’s pathetic little life before becoming another useless member of society.”
That definition may be a tad dramatic.
But Rickenbach will tell you it only took about a month for him to realize he isn’t as happy as he was last year. His teachers don’t seem to care about him like they used to. Most of his friends aren’t here anymore. He’s even gained some weight this year, pounds that seem harder to shed than those first freshman 15. But those are just the side effects.
Feelings of confusion and pressure may not be avoidable, Director of Student Engagement Jimmie Gahagan says, but they are normal.
“It’s part of the natural growth and development process in college to some degree, in that you come in with certain expectations of your college experience,” he says. “And in some ways, you begin to question what you meaning and purpose is.”
He went through it himself as a first-year student at the University of Richmond. Gahagan declared a pre-med and chemistry major, but he decided sophomore year that wasn’t for him and switched to political science and somehow wound up working in higher education.
But those decisions are far harder to make when you don’t have the care and attention of the first-year advisers and resources.
“Unlike the first year, when you’re all coming in at the same entry point, I think by sophomore year and junior year, students are in different places in terms of trying to find their way,” he says. “There are definitely issues or questions of meaning and purpose.”
‘IT DOESN’T FEEL REAL FRESHMAN YEAR’
Six months ago, Rickenbach was a freshman. He went to class, lived in a dorm, did his homework, hung around campus.
“Last year I was ...” he starts before he pauses to think of the right word. “Naïve, maybe? Just enjoying the independence and the freedom.”
He was surrounded by people he didn’t know, but they didn’t know anyone either. They were vulnerable and uncertain about the future, and that was OK — they had plenty of time.
But mere months later, time feels like it’s slipping away from Rickenbach. Decisions beg to be made right now, and all of a sudden, he’s not so sure about things that once seemed concrete. He’s been dealing with the “realness” of college this semester, since he says, “It doesn’t feel real freshman year.”
Last year was like high school — he could go back his decisions and the consequences were minimal. But now, there’s a sense of permanence every time he’s faced with a crossroad.
“These are big choices to make that could affect the rest of your life,” he says, after admitting he isn’t even sure if he wants to major in physics now. “It’s all very daunting.”
Nowadays, he spends his time mapping out his next move, whether it’s where he’ll work next summer or where he’ll be in 20 years. The decisions he’s making, he says, are for the rest of his life.
“It’s becoming an adult. It’s starting the way you want to live your life for the rest of your life.”
WHAT HELPS
Rickenbach plans.
He uses his phone to plan out his day and sets a timer when he gets in the shower. He’ll get dressed while he’s boiling water on the stove to save time, and he sets out everything he needs for his morning coffee the night before, so he doesn’t scramble for cream and sugar in the morning before class.
“The more structure you can create around you, the less you feel like everything’s collapsing, I guess,” he says.
When he’s on the brink, he finds a place with a nice view and calls up a friend from back home. They’ll talk about “s--- [they] used to do as kids” and remind each other how pumped they are to reunite. The nostalgia brings him back to when he wasn’t worrying about everything he is now.
He talks to his girlfriend and his friends about how difficult things have gotten. But they’re going through it, too, and there’s only so much advice one can give when they’ve got the same problems.
In the 2013 Noel-Levitz research report “The Attitudes of Second-Year College Students,” 77.8 percent of students surveyed said they would like help identifying and finding career-relevant internships and work experience.
In the same study, 27.1 percent of second-year students surveyed said they’d like to receive help dealing with emotional tensions bothering them.
About halfway through the semester, Rickenbach started going to the counseling center on campus. Talking to someone has definitely helped him, he says, since it helped him realize what was causing his stress and how he could attack it head-on.
“A lot of people have this social stigma about it because no one likes to ask for help — they always want to feel like they can take care of themselves, and if you’re asking for them then there’s something wrong with you,” he says. “But that’s not the case.”
‘THE CAREFREE KID ... AND THE RESPONSIBLE ADULT’
Maybe Rickenbach’s had enough independence.
It’s not that he wants to move back home and live off of his parents, but the first-year thrill of elementary adulthood has definitely worn off since his first months on campus.
“It’s finding a balance between being the carefree kid you want to be and the responsible adult that you have to be,” he says.
Rickenbach is one of thousands of USC students in limbo — it’s simultaneously the end of the beginning and the beginning of the rest.
“I think that’s what it is,” he says all of a sudden. “It’s our last moment of freedom, it feels like for a lot of people. We don’t want to mess up that opportunity, I guess.”
Maybe it’s landing an internship for next summer that gets you on the fast track to a career. Or maybe it’s settling down in a major you feel passionate about, not pressured into.
Sophomore year is a tunnel. The hard part is finding the light.
“I would argue that no one really knows when that light is or when you’re going to get there, and that’s a scary thought,” he says. “You don’t know when you’re going to feel comfortable again.”
But Rickenbach thinks everyone gets there eventually. Eventually, sophomore year ends.
“It’s just something everyone’s got to go through.”