Hey you. Yeah, you engineering student who either has years of school in the books or is just starting fresh this semester.

I know where you are at.

I know the struggle that you have already encountered or are about to face very soon.

I get that balancing sleep, school work, friends, hobbies, and clubs is just about the hardest thing to be thrown your way thus far.

I get that feeling of insane discouragement when days of studying yields far less than ideal grades.

I understand that keeping a positive outlook on the treachery that goes on week in and week out is near impossible. I also understand the frustration you guiltily feel when other people do seem to have a handle on being positive, perky, and primped while you drag along with your last bit of energy always on the way out.

I come at this from a place of empathy because I have walked in those shoes and sit here preparing myself for it to happen yet again starting tomorrow and ending May 12, 2017 (thank you Lord for your provision in getting me to senior year). A few minutes ago, I felt totally fine with that attitude of dread and minor anxiety. With feeling justified in prepping for doom as if the school I eagerly decided to attend houses actual hell on earth. And then, listening to my own thoughts, I found myself suddenly aware of the pity party I was throwing for myself.

What sort of entitlement am I wading around in if I truly believe that the cards I have been handed in this season of life (trial, challenge, exhaustion, achievement, progress, education) are really the worst parts of my life? Parts that I wish to postpone and curse their arrival. I am blessed beyond what I could ever have asked for in that I get to attend an amazing school. I get to learn incredibly difficult material before going out into the world to help better the lives of deserving people. And apparently I get to be ungrateful for it, solely because I have a gracious God who loves me, and continues to provide for me, in the midst of my worst attitudes.

With that realization and attitude check, I have decided on a change of perspective. I know, we are thinking "ugh, pep talk about how we need to be all thankful and in tune to blessings and that whole spiel" but really y'all, this is so key.

I have decided to be excited that I am in a position that allows for so much challenge and requires so much dedication. It is making me, and all y'all who share in this engineering education path, a better engineer in the long run. It is teaching us how to want something so badly that we are willing to lose sleep in order to do our best on it. It is teaching us that success and innovation aren't found in an afternoon; they take days and crumpled papers and worn down erasers and many (too many) collaborative meetings.

This career we are choosing is not one that plops solutions down in our laps. We are paving a new way with every answer we come upon, and what a beautiful opportunity that is y'all!

We get to make new norms, create gold standards, answer the unanswerable.

We are being invested in with professors' time and energy because someone, somewhere believes in what we will do with all that we are given during these 4 (or 5 or 6) years at school. Someone believes that the dedication that is required of us will be what changes how the world works in years to come.

It is about time we give ourselves room to believe in us too, and to believe that thankfulness for the struggle right now will only add to the journey we are on. I know I will be so much happier with my accomplishments if I can look back a few years down the road and know I let myself enjoy it every step of the way.

So with that, I want to remind myself and all of us of a few things before we let this semester get the best of us.

1. We are all more than a grade on a paper or a GPA on a resume.

Those things do matter, but the point is to be achieving as well as we can, not to be achieving as well as some classmates of ours can.

2. We have earned it to give ourselves a break.

Take a night a week off. Take Saturdays off. Keep up with hobbies and activities you love, because memories are made much more often outside of the classroom than in.

3. Get upset, get frustrated, feel all the feelings that are real.

And then move on. We definitely owe it to ourselves to be honest about how we feel. But feel it for a bit and then let life go on. A group might drive you up a wall, an exam grade might make you need to cry in the bathroom for a bit, and a failed interview might make you feel insecure for a few days. Let those things be felt but also let the good things you encounter be felt more often and with greater fervor. The weight we place on our encounters is our own choosing, so lets place it wisely.

4. We can do it.

School seems like our biggest monster right now, especially when exam weeks hit. But trust me, if I can make it through senior year, all of us can make it through this thing called engineering school.

Y'all, we have so much promise ahead of us. The position we are in right now may seem menial, but getting to engineer the future is anything but menial. You are intelligent, you have so much value, and you are desparately needed where you are at right now.

Prayers for each of y'alls semesters! Here is to making this one the best one yet!