It's been a long and lazy winter break. Most of us have been spending time with family, catching up with old high school friends, making skiing plans, staying warm in the winter weather, and eating all of those leftover Christmas cookies. Returning to college after this long (short) break is going to be a bummer for most, but I'm here to assure you that it most definitely is not going to be that bad.

Most universities have these days known as "syllabus days" where you basically go to class and listen to your future professor talk about things you need for the respective class and books you need to buy or rent. So, these classes are easy to attend after some time off because normally no work is truly involved. In addition to easy first few classes, you get to scope out the new people in all of your classes and see if your friends were really scheduled into the same ones as you. Speaking of friends, you get to see them again! All of your friends that you've made that live six hours away, yeah, you get to see them normally again and grab dinner with them and talk about your break.

Take this time, as your second semester is right around the corner, to organize yourself. This semester is full of new classes, new professors, and new opportunities. If you didn't see that tutor first semester, see them this semester, if you didn't get a chance to do something that you wanted to do, just do it, because you're going to regret it. Outline your goals this semester, buy or rent your books sooner rather than later, stay organized, stay focused, and remember: you're paying money to go to college to further yourself in order to become successful, so don't play around.