Looks like it’s that time again; time to peel yourself off the couch and start mentally and physically preparing for the beginning of spring semester at the University of Delaware. The thought may seem rather nauseating given the number of weeks you’ve had doing absolutely nothing (aside from you studious winter session attendees) but I have a new way for you to think about it.
A new semester can mean so many different things to different people. The beginning of an unpleasant workload, another syllabus week to drink your hearts out, or my most recently developed outlook, a new beginning. The nice thing about the ending of a semester is that everything from the previous few months is completely and utterly in the past. Those classes are over for good, meaning any negative feelings evolving from those classes can be banished as well. This also goes for classes that ended well for you skillful students, in a sense that you ended on a high, so why not transfer the positivity into the following chapter. Whether or not your grades prove what you’ve learned, you must have gained some sort of knowledge or new skill set from simply attending classes and completing the necessary work to hopefully pass the course.
I will be the first one to admit that last semester was filled with quite a few bumps in the road and my specific array of classes did not allow me to show my full potential. All I wanted was for those classes to be pushed into the past and to never resurface again. Now thinking about the beginning of five new classes is extremely nerve-wracking, but the thought of a fresh start also sounds like the best thing I could ask for right now. No matter where you left off in your journey as a student in December, you are about to gain a fresh start with a new group of professors who most likely have zero prior knowledge about you. This is something to take advantage of, because once we all finish college and start a new career path, very rarely will we have the opportunity for a fresh start.
Even if you consider yourself to be a washed up senior, an irrelevant junior, or anything other than a young and curious freshman, it’s never too late to try something new. No matter your current standing, your time in college has not yet come to an end. A whole new semester awaits, so why not adopt the mind of a hungry freshman eager to gain new experiences. Whether you have yet to admit it or not, many of you have that one club that you're just dying to give a try, but have convinced yourself it is of very little importance. Consider the exploration of something different to be another new beginning, and you may even find yourself getting far beyond just the beginning this time.
