So it’s time to go back to school (insert here my very sarcastic woohoo) for those of us who have been in college for quite some time the first day of school isn’t as exciting as it was when your mom would make you stand outside holding a sign stating what grade you were starting that day. To us it was another first day that lead us to listening to many syllabus that stated that our social live’s were over because we are now slaves to the many projects, mid-terms- exams, papers, and finals that held our ability to actually move on to the next “first day”.

You start your first day with a very optimistic mind “This year is going to be MY year!” and as soon as you drive into the parking lot that optimism goes out the window because there are no parking spots. So instead of being in class on time getting your ball point pens out and sparkly notepad ready to be written in your outside dodging freshman who are skipping happily to their first day of class as the upperclassmen are waiting to be hit by a car so they don’t have to endure another semester. Not only have you paid half of your paycheck for the damn parking pass you cant get a parking spot! How ironic is that? The half of us who haven’t come up with the funds to pay for this parking pass, campus police a.k.a. the POPO, are there to crap on your day a little more because they're already handing out parking tickets! Nothing like starting school already owing them more money.

Okay so you’ve finally dodged, swerved and popped a few curbs, ran to class and as you’re in class you get notice of the textbooks you need to get. So after class you head over to the bookstore, you tell the clerk that you need such and such books and there’s no problems. They scan away and your total is absurd. It's as if they actually believe you have that kind of cash! I don’t know what professors think…that maybe money all a sudden does grow on trees? That we’ve all won the lottery or we worked all summer to pay for these books that in most cases we wont even open.

As you attend the rest of your classes you get a first impression of how the semester is going to pan out. You hope to get the incredibly awesome professors who actually put time and effort into their lesson planning; with interacting activities that keep you engaged and going over what you actually need to learn not the stuff straight out of the textbook. I didn’t pay thousands of dollars to take a course of just entirely going over slideshows and writing word for word what each slide says on my paper. I’m telling you students are dozing off asking themselves what would be better to listen to another slide or bash their head in their desk? We're here to learn about what were actually going to need outside in the “real world” to help us succeed in the professions were trying to reach.

For instance, I’m an education major I’m hoping to teach third or fourth grade and the last time I checked third and fourth graders aren’t learning the square root of X. So why am I learning the square root of X? Every week goes by and its another week I didn’t use algebra but boy am I glad I spent money on a course that nearly killed me by making my brain explode with confusion. Oh and I have pretty much forgotten everything that I learned during that course but hey it got me to the next “first day.”

I have been in college for five years, now granted I took almost two years off, but I am tired of being in school and honestly I’m not very good at school. I have to put all my effort into each of my classes praying I can at least come out with a C because you know C’s get degrees. (I don’t recommend using that method-strive for the A’s.) Not only am I having to put every ounce of my effort into my class I’m also working to help pay for the parking tickets, $500 dollar textbooks, my apartment, bills, food to keep my strength for this semester and also the last priority of actually having a life. So basically I’m forever broke and stressed out.

I will admit to you that despite having no time and usually always at my wits end I have met some of my best friends by attending college. I found myself, lost myself, found myself again by all the life lessons I learned through my time in school. I was young, wild and free many nights I should’ve been more focused on studying. Through all of my first days I know I will look back at the first time I walked onto the university grounds as one of the best days but I will also remember when the time comes for my last first day of school ever it will also be the best day of my life.

I have doubted myself many times through college and I for one cant wait to look back on all of these memories and laugh at them. The days I couldn’t find a parking spot, the most expensive book I had to buy, the worst professor I had to take, and the most insane stressful semester of my life because of how much I had to study, work, and how I had to strive make it to the end.

But for now these things that are happening now and aren’t memories are annoying and unnecessary. So I suggest that once each student turns 21 do us a favor and add in a complimentary bottle of alcohol for our sanity on each “first day” and we may be able to call it even.