Six years ago, I wrote an article about the significance of my high school class ring. Fast forward to this article’s publication date, and I now hold a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from THE UNC-Chapel Hill! Granted, it took a year and a half longer than expected to earn that degree, but that’s because I took a hiatus that lasted around a year and three months.
I originally started my university journey at UNC-Greensboro (UNCG), where my previous major was Languages, Literatures, and Cultures with a concentration in Global Languages and Communities. I was there from August 2020-May 2022. Then, I transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill in August 2022 and declared Global Studies as my major before later switching it to Public Policy.
How do I feel about my university journey? Quite emotional, because I’ve come such a long way since starting as a freshwoman at 17 years old. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, and have emerged as a stronger person from my experiences. Thus, it’s only suitable that I reflect on my time at uni, from start to finish. It’s a very thorough one, and due to its length, I decided to split it up into multiple sections.
Table of Contents
The first two years
When I began my first semester of college, we were in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. While others were demotivated in their studies, I was highly motivated with mine. I had spent 3.5 years in virtual high school, so I was already used to the format of online classes. Plus, I was so ready for a change after being home with next to no in-person interaction with classmates during that time.
I’ll admit: I nearly postponed my college entry for reasons unrelated to the pandemic. Namely, there was a time in which I didn’t feel ready to attend. But one day in March 2020, I was motivated to apply for three universities: UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Charlotte, and East Carolina University. The record of my ACT score somehow never arrived at the latter two universities, so I never received their admissions decisions. However, they did arrive at UNC-Greensboro, and I got accepted there! I was really happy about it since it had been my first choice since visiting the campus a year prior. Plus, entering college meant that money was on the line and that I needed to get really serious about schoolwork in order to stay in.
I used strategies that worked really well for completing schoolwork, such as breaking assignments into multi-day parts and finishing them several days before the deadline. That strategy was one of my forms of stress management. Classes being mostly virtual meant that getting into my schedule’s rhythm was second nature. Even so, I still found my first semester at UNCG to be really rough. Not because of the pandemic, but because I was struggling to find and create my own path.
I know that’s a really common struggle for so many college students, but for me it felt different given that I hadn’t attended a brick-and-mortar school since December 2016. How I ended up in virtual school is a story I won’t tell here, because the details are very personal and sensitive. However, what happened before that transition affected my psyche and ability to foster connections.
I remember campaigning to be a first-year representative in UNCG’s student government and losing. It was quite a bummer, but that loss I accepted pretty quickly. And around that time I was elected into my residence hall’s Hall Council, which was a mood booster. Nevertheless, there were other losses I didn’t take very well. My first real blow came when I applied for a position that involved the mentoring of first-year students. It was for the following academic year, and I actually received an email directly recommending that I apply without me even inquiring. I did the group interview, which was the first stage in filtering out candidates. Though afterwards, I received notification that I wouldn’t be advancing to the individual interview. That really hurt and was a strange rejection to me. I thought I had done well enough to at least make it past the group interview.
I also applied for an ambassador role in UNCG’s Honors College. Again, I failed to make it past the group interview, an even bigger blow to me given that one of the interviewers wrote a nice letter of rec for a scholarship I applied for. That same interviewer also taught a 1-credit course I took that semester and had taken note of my solid character. I will say that my group interview performance was pretty lackluster, but I was hoping my connection with the interviewer would help me snag the individual interview. That didn’t happen, and I lost all respect for that instructor/interviewer afterward.
As for social connections, I made a few acquaintances during my first semester at uni. Nevertheless, none of them became close friends, nor was I part of a tight-knit friend group. I was hoping to change that in the following semester by joining a sorority, but that era ended up only lasting 7.5 months and ended for reasons I detailed nearly 4 years ago. I don’t think my ex-sorority compatriots were/are terrible people. Even though I renounced my membership four and a half years ago, I still wish them happy, healthy, and joyful lives. It’s just that their personalities and values were incompatible with mine. Frankly, sorority life as a whole was incompatible for me. I don’t regret going through rush, but with the knowledge I have now, I wouldn’t go through it again.
There’s a lot of performativity in Greek Life—not just with the activism, but also with how members exhibit “love” and “connection” towards each other. I felt that the “love” I was getting from my ex-compatriots wasn’t real, because we didn’t really spend substantial time together outside of sorority functions. I was hoping that my “new member” status would provoke the older members to invite me along for random hangouts, and I was actively trying to build friendships with them. Ultimately though, I didn’t get out as much as I had put in. Not even close. That reality really disappointed me, because it echoed my childhood trauma of nobody wanting to be my friend and feeling less important than a third wheel.
Despite those painful anecdotes I just told, I still have plenty of fond memories of my time at UNCG. For one, I loved the city and campus! Being on campus on its own is enjoyable, but when you have your own car, you can explore all the other parts of Greensboro! I started venturing out more once I got my car on campus. I loved driving out to restaurants and seeing different parts of the city. On the social side, I made meaningful social ties with a meditation club. I frequently went to club meetings, became friends with the group leadership, and added meditation to my self-care toolbox. I haven’t been in touch with those people in a long time, but I actually spent substantial time with them outside of club functions! Even as a member in my ex-sorority, I was active in the meditation club, which made dropping my Greek letters a little less isolating.
By far, the biggest highlight of my time at UNC-Greensboro was my research project made into the form of a podcast: Finding the North Star. You can actually find it in the statewide scholarly database NCDocks. It’s a Blackcentric podcast where I covered topics such as slavery reparations, misogynoir, colorism, and the Tulsa Race Massacre. It started with me reaching out to a professor following a guest lecture she had given in one of my courses. I had emailed her to simply give my reflection on what she had talked about. I wasn’t expecting her to invite me onto any research project, much less permit me to create one of my own. But she liked my reflection, and that’s what led to the making of that podcast.
Finding the North Star is how I started to become well-versed in social justice issues. Before that project, I considered myself a centrist. Although afterwards, my worldviews started to shift further left, and I’m not ashamed of that! It deeply enriched my worldviews, turned me into a strong researcher, and increased my intelligence to what was then an all-time high. That professor’s name was Dr. Hewan Girma, and I’m eternally grateful for her granting me that opportunity!
Also note that I continued writing blog posts for my site throughout my entire time at UNCG. I credit both Finding the North Star and my personal blog for helping me snag my first internship, which I did in Summer 2022 with a wonderful voting rights org called Democracy North Carolina. I also credit my podcast and blog for getting me accepted into UNC-Chapel HIll, albeit Finding the North Star was what motivated me to try transferring there to begin with. It was only because of that project that I felt I had a high probability of acceptance. I had won a year-long research grant, spoken about my podcast at two conferences, and was the first podcaster at UNCG to win the University Libraries Research Award.
I transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill in Fall 2022 to take advantage of the more abundant, stimulating opportunities that existed there. It was an exciting transition but also an extremely disorienting and rough one. The student body was larger and more competitive, and classes were more demanding too. That wasn’t a bad thing, but I had been used to coasting all my classes at UNC-Greensboro. So, I had to morph myself to keep up with the tar-heeled beast that was UNC-Chapel Hill. I couldn’t successfully do that in my first semester there.
In the first month, I had felt the desperate need to soul search and have a break from worrying about academics. My major was Global Studies, a subject of high interest to me, but even that didn’t even feel like the right major for me anymore. All that pushed me into an intense existential crisis, which led to a college hiatus that lasted a little over a year.
I won’t detail what I did during my hiatus, except that I took a wonderful 4-week trip to Madrid, Spain in Summer 2023. The only thing is that I shouldn’t have manually set my phone 6 hours ahead before leaving the U.S., because that caused the international cellular plan to not kick in upon landing. If I had just let my phone auto-update the time, 97% of the problems I had in Spain wouldn’t have happened. Check out my article about Madrid to read about that vacation. It’s a joyous read full of positive anecdotes and fun memories, despite that one mistake. And when I go on another 4-week vacation there one day, it’ll be even better than my first.
The subsequent 2 years
My hiatus from college felt more like 2-3 years rather than a year and 4 months. I could’ve returned to UNC-Chapel Hill in the fall of 2023, but I wanted to take one more semester off to hype myself up for my return. So I reentered in Spring 2024, switching my major from Global Studies to Public Policy. Honestly, I feel some sadness when reflecting on my time at UNC-Chapel Hill. Not because I regret transferring there—I don’t. Rather, because the fire that motivated me to be on top of class assignments was much dimmer.
At UNC-Greensboro, I made lists of what I would do each day, broke up my assignments into multiple days, and frequently turned in my assignments several days in advance. I ceased doing that at UNC-Chapel Hill: I commonly procrastinated on my work, spent little time studying for tests, and I commonly submitted assignments on the due date. A few times I submitted assignments at the 11th hour, with at least 3 of them being submitted at or towards the very last minute.
The ceasing of my time management practices wasn’t truly intentional. I wanted to be at UNC and knew that being there would reap long-term rewards. Even so, just the thought of having assignments for multiple classes burned me out. Deep down, I just wanted to graduate from college. However, graduation still seemed so far out, and I was questioning whether I even had a future worth living for. Thus, I didn’t feel the same incentive to work as hard as I did before. It’s a sad thing to think about given how driven I was at UNCG.
Going on hiatus gave me a temporary respite from university life. While I don’t regret it, I still returned to Chapel HIll without the best coping strategies. My first semester back was really rocky. I auditioned to be a TEDxUNC speaker as soon as I returned to campus, but I wasn’t selected. I was extremely depressed about it at the time, but I understand why I wasn’t chosen. I was very passionate about my subject, but I didn’t sound very articulate or present myself in a very confident way. I was a strong public speaker years prior, but over time that talent waned due to generalized anxiety.
Mentally I was still going through so much, to the point that I almost withdrew from UNC again. Needing time away from college for any reason provokes feelings of loneliness and isolation. Many people have no idea how intense those feelings can get and would never know unless they went through it themselves. They remained even when reentering. I remember attempting to reconnect with a few people I liked by messaging them on Instagram, but only one was truly responsive. (Shoutout to Amaria: I appreciate you, friend! And also to Charvi, who I met after my reentry.) The rest never made real efforts to rekindle our connection. Understandably, they had moved on after learning I would possibly never return to campus. But still, it would have been great if they had shown interest in connecting with me again. It’s already harder to make friends as a transfer student, but going on hiatus after transferring adds an extra layer of difficulty to it.
Was I active in any clubs while at UNC-Chapel Hill? Yes, but very few of them. I served on the executive board for a couple of clubs, but those stints were short due to realizing my off-campus study plans. I didn’t actually go abroad. Rather, I went to Washington D.C. to participate in a semester-long seminar. My experiences were very enriching, because after returning from hiatus (yes, it always goes back to the hiatus), I had feared that I would never make any sort of academic comeback. Despite having a research project and a summer internship under my belt, I still worried my break would make it virtually impossible for me to snag another internship.
I’m so glad I proved myself wrong. I ended up interning for an amazing organization—one that’s actually gotten the attention of extremely powerful people. I was the first person in my DC cohort to accept an internship offer, and thinking about it could make me shed a tear, because I truly thought that I wouldn’t receive any offer. You can read about my time in Washington D.C. on the UNC Study Abroad website or watch my YouTube series detailing it. I had so much fun interning in DC and exploring DC’s attractions.
The surprising thing is that despite not churning out my best work or being at my most eloquent during my junior and senior years, my GPA was high enough that I still managed to earn my Bachelor’s degree with distinction (i.e., honors). Which is a testament to how talented I am even when operating at reduced efficiency. Granted, I don’t think anyone has to operate at 100% literally 100% of the time. I do acknowledge, nevertheless, that I could’ve graduated with highest honors if I had employed the same strategies I used at UNC-Greensboro at UNC-Chapel Hill.
All that’s to say, I’m not going to beat myself up for how I’ve behaved the last couple of years. My end goal was to simply survive and say I earned a Bachelor’s, so getting through those challenging classes and graduating with honors feels great! I’m ready to thrive post-graduation and I feel more optimistic about life now. The only thing is, my job search is still ongoing. That’s hard to deal with given the terrible job market, BUT my personal history has shown that the stars always align in my favor in the end, even if that takes months or years. So in the end, I’ll find a satisfying job in public policy. And it’ll happen through my own efforts. It will…
What’s next?
In this grand year of 2026, I’m intending to do a lot more blogging, with this article being my starting point. As I start to write actively on Krista Soy Yo again, I’m happy to tease a few topics you can expect me to write about in the coming weeks and months. For one, I’ll publish a few book reviews that have been in the vault for a long time. I’ll keep the books in question a secret for now. However, I’ll explicitly disclose two documentaries I plan to write in-depth analyses on, which are Pop Star Academy: Katseye and Amy.
I also plan to publish some album reviews and track rankings within different albums. There are a couple of album track rankings that are wayyyyy overdue, which I’ll save for a surprise drop. Albeit you’ll know the albums in question when you see them, because they’ll become the first music reviews to be published on my blog in ages. Afterward, I intend to publish track-by-track rankings of each Tate McRae album and also a track-by-track review of Rosé’s album rosie (where I won’t be ranking tracks by least-most favorite, but rather simply writing my thoughts on each song in listed order).
Furthermore, expect more articles in the “social justice” category. I have a lot of thoughts about various issues and political events, and the commentary I publish will be both sensitive and blunt. That’s not to say that I’ll write just anything on my blog. I don’t believe that people are entitled to say whatever they want online, and freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. However, it’s okay to give honest commentary about any real world event. The main thing is to draw the line at 1) false information and 2) unjustified draggings of people whose offenses don’t warrant them.
Oh, and one more thing: I plan to soon write and publish an article that’ll shock anyone who has thoroughly browsed my blog. It’ll be about a hard lesson I learned several months ago. And what’ll make said article shocking is that it’ll center a person I’ve praised multiple times on my blog. I might be giving too much away with that hint, but you can probably figure out who that person is just by viewing the titles of my past blog articles. The ones who figure it out beforehand will likely perk up and go, ohhh? It’s about [insert name], isn’t it? While the ones who don’t will have to wait for its release and then feel the aftershock.
Krista soy yo. I am Krista, and there’s about to be a whole lot of cooking on my end. GET READY TO EAT IT ALL UP!
In the meantime, check out the map I inserted on my Home page that shows all the countries and territories where people have viewed my blog. The map includes the places in which people viewed the old version of my blog, previously titled Sweet Simplicity. As of this article’s publication date, my blog has had visitors from 128 countries and territories. It’s a very cool feature that I’ll update periodically as new places appear in my blog’s analytics. Have fun interacting with the readership map!
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