Adults, high schoolers, and the elderly often see college kids as the “irresponsible, class skipping, party going, sleeping all day,” kind of people. I think that the majority of college students can agree, we get a bad reputation.
College kids don’t sleep until noon every day, party every night, or skip class all the time. Just like anything else, there are some college kids who would be considered the college “stereotype.” Most often than not we wake up for 8 am classes, work full time jobs, pay our rent, spend hours on end at the library, and go to class every single day. College is hard so give us a break.
College kids are told they need to have a high GPA, which is to be expected. This may seem like a simple task, even for the simplest of majors but I promise you there are so many things that make maintaining a respectable GPA very difficult. Getting good grades is not easy. People who aren’t currently in college either do not understand this or they forget how hard it was in the first place. Professors assume that their class is the only class that matters. They load up the homework, quizzes, and essays and also never take into consideration that we might just have 5 midterms on the same day. We are expected to maintain an acceptable GPA so that we have a good chance at getting into graduate school but those graduate schools don’t get to see all the factors going into our final grades.
Working in college seems to be impossible. Trying to find a job is the hardest part but once you have a job it gets harder. I am sure that every college kid, either working full time or part time, can agree; trying to schedule work to fit with your classes can be a challenge. Your boss says “they will work with your schedule” but you end up getting scheduled shifts when you have classes and for some reason all bosses decide to schedule you 40 plus hours during final week. A lot of college students are paying for their own school so even though they are drowning in homework and studying they still go to work because they need the money. Sometimes it is hard to decide if you want to work or make notecards for an exam you have coming up next week.
A decent amount of college advisors actually care about college kids and try to help us schedule the classes we need to graduate on time. On the other hand a few of college kids are getting stuck with advisor who could care less about the well-being of our college experience. I have heard horror stories about college kids having to go an entire extra semester because their advisor “forgets” that they need a specific class or because their advisor told them that they had enough credit hours to graduate. Our future is not something to “forget” or to play around with. We do not have time or money to be adding extra classes or to be graduating late because we had to go an extra semester. College is hard enough as it is, we should be able to trust our advisors because that is their job and this is our future.
So to the outsiders, please do not assume that college kids sleep all day and never do any work. We are working hard every day, working hard to become better people, working hard to make something of ourselves. We are doing homework, and studying, and trying to find time to sleep. Yes, we go out and we aren’t doing school work 100 % of the time but we are trying. We are trying to become successful and we are working towards a better life for ourselves. So do not assume the worst when we are just trying our best.
To the college kids, keep pushing. Keep working hard every day. Wake up and remember that college is hard, but you can do it. Remember everything you have accomplished. Remember the A you got on an exam after an all-night in the library, remember the feeling you have after finishing a semester long project, or the excitement you feel when you do well on a presentation. Also, remember the mistakes because they will make you stronger and remind you that even though maybe you have failed once or twice you have made twice as many accomplishments. Take time to have fun, take time to watch your favorite show, and to hang out with your friends. Sleep in that extra hour sometimes because you are young and you deserve it.
