<p>Goodness, how am I already a rising junior? I remember back when I was a freshman and had a couple junior friends and quietly mumbled to myself: “Wow they’re old” (not in an offensive manner). But now, who is old too? *sigh</p>
<p>Being an upperclassmen doesn’t mean that I am now wise and educated. It’s still a learning process. I do have my share of regrets and I am learning from these called mistakes. As the hectic move-in process begins for my fellow freshmen, I’d like you to not make the same mistakes as I did and regret later.</p>
<p>1) EXCUSES & PROCRASTINATING: SAY NO - Countless times I have rejected movie hang-outs with my friends because I had a paper to prepare for or bailed out on watching The Office and eating pizza with my roommate because I was “busy.” All I can remember is that every time something came up, I had an excuse to say “no” to. I’m not anti-social in any sense of the word. But how did I come up with all these excuses? Answer: wasting a lot of my time on procrastinating. Because I wasted time procrastinating, I had less time to finish assignments, therefore making excuses to not indulge myself in other activities.</p>
<p>2) OPPORTUNITIES: TAKE THEM - Which leads me to number two, missed opportunities. Because of the myriad of excuses I made to myself, I missed a bunch of beautiful opportunities to learn, experience new things and have fun; info panel sessions, free salsa dance lessons, cultural immersion activities, and the list goes on.</p>
<p>Of course college will be challenging and there will be times where you will be stuck in the library sitting longer than your butt can ever resist
Of course you will have to read a lot and
of course you will have to study a lot. </p>
<p>But this doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. Be WISE with your TIME and set aside time for some FUN. Although there will be times you will procrastinate (totally understandable), do not let it become a HABIT! I have learned the hard way and I know that when I go back to school this fall, I will promise myself to not make the same mistake twice.</p>
<p>I totally agree with what kevster 1001 wrote. I’m also a junior and I can’t believe that I’m half-way done with college. College semesters go by so much more quickly than high school semesters. Some tips I have for incoming freshmen:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>College is exciting, or at least it should be.
I found myself in a new environment, with strangers my age everywhere, and events to go to, and classes to prepare for, and lots of things to see and learn. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but you’ll get used to it, and college will become your new home. </p></li>
<li><p>Use your freedom well.
You have four years of independence, where you can do whatever you want and your parents can’t tell you what to do (basically). Use that freedom well! Be active in making friends, do extracurricular activities, do the best you can in class, and just have a great time! And think about what you want to do after college. How can you work towards those goals? You shouldn’t worry about it when you’re a freshman, but you should think about it from time to time. Because college will end before you know it, and you want to have some plan after graduation. And you want to take advantage of the resources you have in college while you have them.</p></li>
<li><p>Time management is definitely important.
Sometimes there will be so much you want to do in a certain week. Maybe you have plans to hang out with your friends, and you have an unusually large amount of homework and studying to do, and there are visiting lecturers and special guests that you want to see. You want to get as much out of college as you can, so plan accordingly. I don’t know anyone for whom college turned out to be the way they thought it would. Sometimes I stay up late chatting with a friend across the hall when I should be preparing for class, but the conversation I had would be a lot more memorable than what I would have read for class.</p></li>
<li><p>But not everything goes as planned.
It’s important to be flexible and have time left over in your schedule just in case things don’t work exactly as you had planned. That’s part of the fun, I think. I like it when things don’t always happen within the planned timeframe. </p></li>
<li><p>Just go with the flow.
Relax. Don’t stress out too much over little things. Worry a lot about extremely important things, and don’t worry about the small stuff. In the end, who’s really going to care if you got a terrible grade on a history paper? It’s the friends you make and the extracurricular activities and how you change during college that will be most memorable.</p></li>
<li><p>Oh, yeah, one more thing.
Don’t worry if freshman year didn’t go as well as you had expected. It’s bad if you end the year hating the college and never want to go back. But if you had some bad experiences, it’s OK. Freshman year is just your first year. I found sophomore year twice as enjoyable as freshman year. I didn’t have a fantastic freshman year, and I was surprised when I found out that a lot of my friends at my college and in other colleges felt the same way.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Dang I’m already a super senior. I read new high school seniors writing about college essays and such and it makes me sad. :/</p>
<p>but also…</p>
<p>Use your time wisely but NOT TOO wisely where it’s tiring you out! I’m the type of person who has to do alot of things… so I was taking maximum units, 2 majors + 1 minor (had to knock it out later since I didn’t have space!) + work study + internship + senior thesis.
My (asian) mom had to tell me to chill the hell out during the summer (which I did not listen to… uhh since I went and got another internship + freelancing jobs…)</p>
<p>I had mostly no free time and my health did suffer since I tired myself out (it was mostly 9-9 schedule everyday…) and I still can’t sleep properly after drinking endless cans of monster! URGH. I’m also breaking out really badly after that semester =_= sigh. Well it felt really good after everything was done at least.</p>
<p>Basically… Don’t work TOO hard, have some fun, go do some stupid things with your friends, but also know when to say no to all their invitations.</p>
