College is hard. Period.

As a student, you have to juggle academics, extracurricular activities, and possibly a job all while trying to maintain a social life and keeping yourself (and your mental state) healthy. I think all college students can agree that is exhausting having to always be somewhere or doing something with no time to relax. If you do end up chilling back, you only get stressed out that you're not working tirelessly on that paper that is due for your Ancient Greece history class or your billion-word problems for math all due by the next class. You gave it your all and you still didn't get the grades you wanted, make as many friends, or participate in certain events that you were looking forward to.

My mom always told me that if I tried my hardest then the outcome shouldn't matter as much. It's difficult to have that state of mind when the end result decides if you earned a credit toward your college degree or not. Here's the thing to remember: you gave it your all. You put the entirety of your heart and soul into this semester. Sure, you didn't tackle everything and that is perfectly okay. After all, you're only a human being. You can't be in two places at once and you can't multitask as much as you would like to. Take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back. You completed a semester!

Assess where you felt you went wrong or lacked a little something in the department of your academics. Prioritize your time. Putting your all into everything you do will only drain you. Maybe your current study methods aren't the greatest or don't suit your individual needs. There is always room for improvement. Perhaps you shouldn't go out to the club with friends when you have an important exam to study for the next day. Possibly, you just need to cut down on hours at work, but I know college is expensive and sometimes students can sadly not afford that.

Don't drag yourself down. If this is your first semester, higher education is extremely different from the likes of high school. It's just not pure memorization anymore, you have new material being thrown at you every day, even if you didn't fully grasp the last concept. You learn that things that seemed so effortless in high school, take a lot of hard work and dedication in college. If you were a straight-A student back in your senior year, it's quite possible that you will become a C student in college. However, your grades do not define you as a person! Take a bad grade (or one that you dislike) and critique yourself. Maybe the C can flutter into a beautiful B and then into an admirable A.

C's still get you degrees! Try your hardest is the best thing you can do for yourself. Good luck in the next semester!