We will get through this with finesse, sophomores.

Sophomore year starts with such hope. Your first year is over, and you begin to hope that your college experience will continue on the exponential rise you got into at the end of last year. However, as hard as you may fight the “sophomore slump,” it came as sure as the first snow came to Gambier before Thanksgiving. For those of you who don’t believe in this phenomenon, here are a few ways you might be experiencing it and you just don’t even realize it yet.

1.  Registration: You’re not a first-year, but still are at the bottom of the registration chain. By now most upper level classes are full, and you either have to try to shove your way in or take some random intro class you’ll probably withdraw from in a month anyway. Sorry, first-years.
2. Housing: Some may have gotten lucky to have nice upper-level housing, but most of us wake up to freezing showers and the same fluorescent lighting of shame we did last year. The excitement of dorm living fades, and you stare out of your Caples window at the NCAs as a single tear forms and freezes to your face because you still can’t work your heater.
3. Party Scene: Adulthood is starting to set in. You stop focusing so much on what nail polish to wear to this Friday’s Old Kenyon party and instead staying in to drink wine and watch Real Housewives is your definition of a beautiful and crazy night. This worldly jadedness will only grow within you in the coming years, you can just feel it.
4. Hookup Culture: Alongside that, hooking up is so much weirder. By now you know (or perhaps really know) most of the campus. And then there are the first-years, who are still very new to the game. So there you are, in an odd limbo, wondering what to do. Rather than navigate that complicated social sphere, you might instead find yourself starting to appreciate your bed more without another person in it.
5. Workload: After fighting your way into them, you’re in some seminars now so your workload suddenly rises and you understand why people actually need all-nighters. Pair this with your overall ambivalence about everything and then you physically feel yourself slumping over with the pains of sophomore year drilling into your patience, motivation, and lower back.

At this point, it’s best to just accept the slump and embrace it. Stock up on chocolate and reruns of Gossip Girl; we’ve still got another semester to go.