Surviving Freshman Year
You arrive and things are going great, you’re meeting new people everywhere you go, you’re attending all the events that your school has for its students. You are having a blast. Before you know it, you’re tired, your list of things to do is piling up, and you’re feeling a bit burned out. It happened to me, it happened to a lot of people I knew, and if you are not careful, it can happen to you too.
College is definitely a new experience. It provides opportunities for you to realize who you are and what you want out of life. You are becoming more independent. However, college is also a time to prepare for the future, and letting your studies (and all of that money) go to waste is a bad idea.
To begin with, friends are great, but hosting all night vigils in your room with your friends is not. The first few weeks of school, my roommate and I had girls in our room up until about three AM each night. We were tired, but we enjoyed the company they provided us. We went to bed each night after they left, only to awake a short four hours later to begin our day. Eventually, we become very tired and burned out and realized we couldn’t do this anymore. We posted hours on our door. We didn’t allow people to sit with us all night long. Things began to improve in a few short days.
Another big thing to remember is, procrastination is not your friend. A lot of professors will not accept assignments after the due dates. If they do (which is a rare occurrence) most take off points, or even drop one full letter grade for each class day the assignment is late. Begin your work in a timely manner! If you have problems beginning or completing an assignment, don’t be afraid to seek out a friend that has the same class as you, or email your professor. You can always schedule an appointment to meet with them as well. They are there to help if you need it. They can offer you much needed advice on your assignment, or they can give you ideas to help you work towards completion. They cannot help you if they do not realize you have a problem.
Another really important thing to remember is, don’t believe everything you hear. Problems can arise between you and friends whenever one person hears something from another and they perceive it to be true. Things get out of hand, and now both sides are saying things about the other, and the other side is hearing this, but words are now completely twisted around, leading them to believe you said something that wasn’t said at all. This happened between me, my roommate and a few other friends as well. It lasted for months until it had escalated so much, both sides had to crack.
After talking out the situation, both sides had realized we had heard wrong information from a group of people we thought we could trust. We were lead to believe each were saying bad things about the other, when in reality, they were using us for a form of entertainment. After we had talked everything out, we had no more problems, as we had realized the real problem and stopped listening to what anyone else had been saying. Don’t let it happen to you! Talk it out with your roommate or friend before it gets out of hand. It’ll only cause you more problems in the long run.
