We all learned in high school biology about evolution from Charles Darwin. Per usual, most of us either didn't care or were totally fascinated by it. But the idea of evolution applies far beyond biology, it applies to us as people. The transfer from high school to college requires you to evolve, both as a student and as a person. You cannot stay the same person that you were if you want to succeed in life. Evolution made us who we are today, and it hasn't stopped, you can't either. You always need to strive to be better then you were yesterday.

To not evolve and grow as a person means you're remaining stagnant, and that's a waste of your time. This isn't a poorly written Twilight book, and you will run out of that eventually. Make every moment count, go on that road trip, ask your crush on a date, go to that concert. You will find that even the little things in life will help you to grow as a person, you would be surprised how much you can learn from even the smallest interactions. Never sell yourself short by saying you can't do something because I guarantee you that you are more capable than you think.

For my college students who read my articles, I've talked so much about how to improve yourself as a student and the importance of knowing and acknowledging your self-worth, but I really mean it. I see so many people post about how dead they feel and how overwhelmed they are. The fact that this is the norm for college students really makes me sad. You need to organize yourself and grind out the work. You need to set priorities and goals and achieve them. Every student is capable of brilliance, we need to be brave enough to strive for it.

Growing up, I was never the best in school. My teachers constantly wrote that I was a smart kid, I just didn't take any initiative to do the work. I was like this up until my sophomore year of high school. My parents sat me down and told me something had to change with my grades, I was sitting at a 2.3 GPA, and heading into ACT and college apps time. It wasn't that my parents were ashamed of me, they just knew that I was capable of so much more. They pushed me, my uncles pushed me, my siblings pushed me, my whole family pushed me, and I got my GPA from a 2.3 to a 3.0 in a year. This lead to me becoming more responsible with money, more responsible with the way I act, it was a chain reaction. These are all examples of evolution. I had to learn how to evolve into the person I am today. And I'm still working at it, but at least I'm trying.

I don't want anyone to take away from this article that they need to be perfect because that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that I want to see everyone be the best person they can be because damn it, you all deserve that. We need to be the generation that steps up and makes the world better, and we can only do that by evolving into the best people that we can. I know we can do it, so let's do it!