English Post #10

    As a freshman in college it can be scary, especially when you are in the middle of a pandemic. Aside from the pandemic it's always scary. You're finally on your own, as an independent adult. At first it might seem amazing and fun but after a while you start realize that it's not all that it's cracked up to be. I remember back in high school all my teachers wold say "Your professors don't care if you pass or fail, its your degree" and them saying things along the lines of "Its going to be so much harder in college". I honestly want to call bullshit on them. 

    Yes the material you are learning is harder and there's so much that you do have to learn in such a little amount of time, but personally its not that hard when you actually time manage properly. Thats coming from the girl who was always running late in high school. About the whole "professors won't care" thing, its absolutely wrong. From my college experience, our DC professors do care. So many professors offer office hours that you can go to and get the help you need, many professors I have learned from are more than willing to work with you if you work with them, and many of them want you to succeed academically and athletically. There is one thing that I wish I was told about college though.

    I wish someone would have told me that no matter how much you want something or how long you have dreamed about it, things change and it's time to embrace change. If you honestly don't embrace change while being at college you probably won't learn and won't grow so that you can become the person that you want to be. I personally have experienced both sides. I fortunately was on the side of embracing the change while my roommate wasn't. 

    Along side with the change is your time management. You might not have been good at time management (I certainly wasn't) but now is the time. A good way that I have found out is to write everything down. Due dates for homework, when you have an exam, when you have practice, study table times, all of your classes. The key trick to doing this though is to write them down in time order. When you have everything down in time order it gets a little easier to see your whole day and what is going to happen. It can be very stressful and hard, especially being an athlete.

    Which brings me to my third thing I have found out about college. Being an athlete isn't easy, far from it. Yes it is fun and you will meet some amazing teammates, but you still need to work hard. At practice, at classes, and you still might have to put in some extra side work by yourself to get to where you want to be.  The extra work won't be mandatory but if you do put in the extra work it can help. Now don't get your hopes up, be realistic with yourself. 

    Being realistic is something that we never think about when it comes to college. We all have this sort of picture of how college is supposed to be, but it's really not. If you keep that picture of the partying, the drinking, you're not going succeed how you want to. I have also experienced that from a person that is here for the "college experience" but not to actually get their education and they are really suffering now. So don't let the "college experience" illusion take you off track for your life long goals.