College is supposed to be the time in one's life when they discover themselves or when they officially decide what they are going to do after their schooling is over. However, it isn't always that easy. Many people come to college with no plan and with very little to no maturity. These, and other circumstances, provide the perfect recipe for effectively screwing up everything that college is supposed to provide for you as a young adult. Whereas we are called to grow, expand, and progress during our four years, these are some of the many reasons as to how one can set themselves moving backwards instead of forwards.
1. Being too Involved
"Being to involved? I thought I was supposed to get involved in college?" Correct! Getting involved is a great thing to do while you are at the school of your choice, but their is a difference between becoming involved and placing yourself in a situation where you have so much going on that it seems as though the world is ending. A common idea that seems to be misplaced in today's culture is that college is for learning first and everything else second. Therefore, allow school to dictate how much you allow yourself to be involved in.
2. Not Being Involved Enough
This is where one must work on balancing. While it is an issue to have too much going on, it is also an issue to not have very much or anything going on either. Being involved in organizations or clubs isn't a bad thing, so don't be afraid to get involved in them. By taking yourself out of the realm of extracurriculars, you add unnecessary stress to your academic career by not allowing yourself to have an escape.
3. Partying
This is not a very popular thought process amongst many people, but this is an opinion and so here we go. Partying is not necessarily a bad thing. Many people use it as a way of relieving stress or allowing themselves to have fun in an extremely social setting. This does not mean that it shouldn't be attempted with care. For starters, not only could you cause physical harm to yourself as well as others, when you do enter into the "real world" and begin to look for a job, employers check social media to make sure they are not hiring an idiot. Therefore, if there happens to be one video of you being an idiot on social media, because nothing is ever really deleted, then there goes your chance at said job. Before we even get out of college though, this habit can produce serously damaging effects to not only your academics, but can also lead to the possibility of addiction if it becomes a habitual practice.
4. Experimenting
Yes, college is when you should branch away from your comfort zone. That doesn't mean run around like a chicken without its head. Limitations still apply and the world is not going to change for you. Certain things were forbidden by your parents for a reason, believe it or not, and just because you are away from them doesn't give you license to see how many of their old rules you can break. This includes everything from partying to sleeping around to even things as simple as not providing a schedule for yourself. These three things, and many more, can all hinder one's success when not kept under control This is why college should be a time of experimenting with one's mind and seeing what kind of passions you may have that you weren't given the ability to follow in early years of schooling. For goodness sakes, let's just keep it academic people!
5. Refusing to Learn
This one may be the worst of them all. College is a place where it is ok to have your ideas tested and challenged in a way that they never have been before. This does not mean clinging to what you thought you knew before you arrived. What you have been brought up knowing is wonderful knowledge that helps us all out from time to time, but that doesn't mean that this knowledge is universal truth. It is ok to explore new ideas that may challenge your thought process and it is even more ok to accept some of those thoughts as your own. If you block off the outside, and do not allow any new information to even enter your mind, then all you are doing is wasting money and wasting a professor's time.
Hopefully, nobody who reads this will have these issues, but if you do, I plead with you to consider your ways and look to better them. Lest you return to your memories, years down the road, and find that the only thing you remember is going to parties on Thursday nights or consistently staying up till three in the morning and failing classes because of it.
