The Struggles of Freshmen Year in College

Based on my experience, the first struggle I had as a freshmen student in college was finding friends. Well, “finding friends” isn’t exactly hard to do since some people actually are the ones who take the first step to befriend me. The problem was I was shy and quiet, so I had trouble opening up and communicating with my new friends. Of course in due time, I was beginning to realize that having no friends in college is a very big “no-no”; because in order to survive college, one must have friends. Having good friends will help you cope with your struggles during the first year in college. They can be a support while being away from your family, but of course, it also depends on what kind of friends one has.

                The second struggle I have is my dorm-life. Every day I have to travel by riding a jeep, or a taxi to get to school. In addition, whenever I’m late, I have to ride a taxi which is very costly especially during traffic, and when I ride a jeep often times there is traffic and lots of pollution going on around me. My dorm-life itself is very boring, especially because I’m not used to it. Living only in dormitories have lots of disadvantages, for example: I had to eat outside often which is very tiring for me. Plus, no cable for television, and some dorms don’t even have a television. I guess the only good thing in my dorm is the fast internet, but of course the downside to it is that our internet has a time limit.

                The third struggle I’ve experienced involves money. My mother set up an average amount of money I have to spend each day for a whole month while I’m in school. She gives me monthly allowance, but my problem is that sometimes, I overspend my allowance and sometimes I use my allowance to buy some things that isn’t included in my monthly allowance. So another lesson I learned in college is to always manage my time and my money properly and of course, to always save money just in case of emergency.

                But the struggle that mostly affected me was school-related. I flunked most of my long exams in my course-subjects like Math, which I passionately hate. It also happens to be that my course in college loves math so much that my major subject is math. I can’t tell my family how I really feel because of how hard it really is for me and how I’m struggling. Right now, I am contemplating on shifting to another course but this is where another problem comes in. If I shift to another course, I won’t be able to see my friends usually anymore. And at some point, If I ever do shift into another course, I will surely miss them.

Pandora

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods: Hephaestus and Athena with the orders of Zeus. As Hesiod, a Greek poet related it, she was created with the help of the gods by giving her unique gifts. Zeus also ordered Hephaestus to mold her out of earth as part of the punishment of humanity for Prometheus’ theft of the secret of fire, and all the gods in Olympus joined in offering her “seductive gifts”. 

The gifts each God bestowed on Pandora was special. Athena clothed her, Aphrodite gave her beauty, Apollo gave her musical ability, Hermes gave her speech and Zeus gave her curiosity. According to the myth, Pandora opened a box called the “Pandora’s box”—which was actually a jar and was mistranslated as a box—releasing all the evils of humanity.

The Pandora myth first appeared in Hesiod’s poem, the Theogony, without ever giving the woman a name. After humans received the stolen gift of fire from Prometheus, an angry Zeus decided to give humanity a punishing gift to compensate for the treachery they did. And then, He commanded Hephaestus to mold from the earth the first woman whose descendants would torment the human race. This woman in the Theogony was presumed as Pandora, whose myth Hesiod revisited in his poem, Works and Days.

The more famous Pandora myth came from another poem from Hesiod called, Works and Days. In this poem, she was given the name Pandora by Hermes which meant the “all-gifted” because all of the Olympians gave her a gift. In the retelling of her story, Pandora was portrayed to have a deceitful feminine nature and becomes the least of humanities’ worries for she brough a jar containing diseases and other myriad pains. Prometheus warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus. But Epimetheus did not listen. He accepted Pandora who promptly scattered the contents of her jar. However, one item did not escape the jar, hope which Hesiod did not say why it remained in the jar.