It’s Saturday night and all your friends are going to a party, but you have a project due on Tuesday that you haven't started yet. Even so, you decide to go — you’ll get to the project later. You’ve been working all week, and you deserve to have some fun over the weekend. I mean, it’s college, right? So you make the most of the night, promising yourself you’re going to work the next day. When Sunday morning comes around, you spend all day saying, “Only one more episode,” when watching Netflix. Then it’s nighttime and you’re completely screwed on your project and pull two all-nighters to get a good grade.

In college, you think, “How do I manage it all?” The peer-pressure? The workload and the new people? It’s all a lot to do on your own, and when you were at home, you always had a parent over your shoulder telling you to set your priorities straight. Now you’re in college and you learn you have to be your own parent, but the parent inside you still deserves to have a little fun, right?

When you enter college, you’re going to be constantly surrounded by new things. However, some of the newest things can be the most intense like alcohol, weed or being attracted to different people. And maybe these are things some people want, but it doesn't mean everyone wants them. One thing that college students have to face and overcome is peer-pressure. We are all going to have peers that say, “Try it, it’ll be fun!” or “Tt’s only this one time,” or “Don’t you want to try something new?” It’s extremely hard to overcome peer-pressure in college — this is the part where you get to be your own parent, and sometimes the hardest thing to say in college is no.

Of course you want to have fun. And when you’re at a party, you know there are times when you have too much to drink, and that’s when you know enough is enough. One of the most important moments in your life could be saying no to that fourth drink you know you don’t need, or to the blunt you know you don’t want, or to the boy you know you don’t want to wake up to the next morning. Even though you may be bummed that you're staying within your limits, this is the no you’ll be happy you said in the morning. Turning away from the pressures of your peers is one of the bravest things to do in college, at least in my opinion.

Something so exciting about college is getting to meet new people, some of these people being boys. Say you’re at a party. You’ve met a guy, exchanged names, talked about your interests and majors, and then you start dancing. And of course, you end up making out with him at some point. You choose to not go to his dorm that night, but you still have an interest in the boy and exchange numbers. You guys don’t really end up talking the next day because you realized that maybe he doesn’t want to have a relationship in college, and that it’s all just physical attraction. Then you think to yourself, "Maybe that’s all it really was." You’ve talked to so many guys who say they don’t want to be in a relationship their first year of college, and then think about whether you want one yourself.

Sometimes you feel like you're ready for a relationship, and sometimes you feel like you aren’t. You might finally be ready to settle down. After all the pointless high school relationships that you experienced, you feel like you’ve learned how to be a grown-up and experience what it feels like to be in love. Then the other part of you kicks in — the side that wants to run and hide when they think about a relationship. The idea of commitment scares you, and you're worried that you won’t be in love with the person you settle down with forever. You feel like since you haven’t experienced true love in high school, you aren’t ready to be in love in college and fear that you just aren’t meant to be in a relationship. These two “yous” go against each other, and you start to think to yourself, “I don’t know if I want to be a relationship or if I just want to meet new people and have the fun that everyone else claims they have in college.” You have not a single clue what’s going to happen. Those two parts of yourself continue to argue and make you realize that you have time to think about the future, but you’re still focused on who you’ll end up with no matter how many people you may meet at parties.

“It’s college! It’s college, man.” Everyone wants to have fun in college, myself included. Despite all the fun, you still have to be an adult. You still have to maintain the 3.0 GPA to keep your current scholarship, and yes, you can do both. But throughout all the fun, don’t lose touch or be pressured out of the person you intended to be in the beginning. No, I may not have ever been in love and no, I'm not sure that I’m ready for it nor will I be desperately searching for it. But yes, I am ready to take hold of whatever is handed to me in the next four years of this adventure.