High school for me was quite honestly a breeze, and despite taking multiple AP and honors courses each year, I managed to maintain nearly all straight-A's and graduate with a close 4.0. School had always come extremely easily to me, and despite the higher difficulty of most of my courses, I never needed to study intensely for any tests or spend all-nighters trying to complete work. As I entered my freshman year of college, I went in with the same expectations that I held throughout high school. Come my first college exam, however, I got the wakeup call of a lifetime.

My first college exam was in a 100-level human development & family studies class, a topic I really enjoyed and was taking as a required gen-ed. I figured giving myself 2 days prior to the exam to begin looking over my notes and reading the textbook would be adequate, as that was the routine I had grown accustomed to in high school. The day of the test arrived, and as my professor handed me my exam, I found myself in a very difficult situation. While I had memorized all of the terms I needed to know for the class, I didn't ever think that understanding the course's material didn't involve just memorization of terminology. Sure, in some cases that may be true, but I quickly came to the realization that taking a course was about understanding the concepts, and being able to apply them to real life situations and problems. After receiving my first C+ on a college exam, I realized that I needed to learn how to change my study habits, and fast, if I wanted to turn things around.

Soon my entire routine changed, and I spent countless nights up until the sun rose for the next day, filling out stacks of flashcards and highlighting segments in my textbook. It was a difficult period of adjustment, and it didn't come easily at first, but I finally learned how to properly study for an exam. It took me 18 years of my life to truly learn how to study, something that to this day frightens me a bit and makes me how aware of how high school prepared me in no sense for college.

I'm currently a junior in college and I still do struggle with how to properly study for each exam I take. Every subject requires a different method of learning and understanding the material, and whether it's making flashcards, quizlets, or covering a whiteboard in hundreds of equations and problems, I continue to work my hardest to ensure that I am putting into my courses what I want to get out of them.

College is never easy. While some majors may be more difficult than others, your course load does not define who you are and how much work you're putting into school. Every single student applies the same amount of effort, determination, and dedication into their courses, it just shows in different ways. As a STEM major I have found that my methods of studying are extremely different from my business-major roommates, or my education-major friends. But nonetheless, each and every one of them puts so much hard work into everything they do, and that should never be discounted.

Just remember that you are doing what you do because it is your passion, and that hopefully one day it will all pay off. All of the countless hours spent studying, writing papers, and stressing over projects and exams will result in a degree that you will cherish and take pride in for the rest of your life. And that should be the sole motivation you need to kick-ass for the rest of your college career.