Dear High School Senior,
It wasn't too long ago that I was in your shoes, and it was such an exciting, yet nerve-wracking time for me and all my friends. The acceptance letters have started rolling in, but you're waiting for one or two specific letters that seem to take forever. You don't know what the right decision is, and you don't exactly know how to weigh your options. You have big dreams and ambitions that you think will come easy to you, but they won't.
That's the the thing: I wished someone had told me.
You think you work hard now, even though you barely study - you just do your homework and follow the deadlines. Everyone tells you that college will be the best four years of your life, but that it will be hard, and you silently say to yourself that if anyone can do it, it's you. You think you're smarter than the people who tell you that college is nearly impossible, but you're not. Odds are that the person warning you was just like you in high school.
You're going to go to college and feel like you're drowning, and that's okay. You can't let yourself fall through the cracks. There's no one constantly reminding you when your homework assignments, papers, and labs are due - it's all in the syllabus, and it's your responsibility to keep track. You're on your own now. You don't have your family to cook you dinner and clean up after you. Everything is going to be on you, because after all, college forces you to be an adult. You're going to have to make decisions on whether it's more important to study for your exam or to go out to a party, and you have to know what the right decision is.
Your tests are no longer memorization. You won't study the information and spit it back out onto paper. College is all critical thinking, where you're given scenarios and have to apply what you learned. Your professor won't go over everything that's on the test in lecture, so you'll have to fill in the blanks with your textbook. Everything is about to change for you, and whether it changes for the good or for the bad, it's in your hands.
So here's the advice I wish someone had given me: school comes first. The parties are tempting, and having no parental guidance seems freeing, but it can be detrimental if you don't act like your own parent. If you have a big test, ditch the party and get your studying done. There will be times when you feel like you're drowning in work and that you can't handle the stress, but trust me when I tell you that you can. You can truly conquer anything you put your mind to. Make sure you plan ahead. In high school you can study the period before and pull a 95 on a test, but it's not possible in some college classes. You need to keep up with your reading so that it doesn't build up and attack you the day before your exam.
My last piece of advice is that everything is fixable. The one bad grade will seem like it ruined your future, but it won't. You can always retake a class or work harder on the next test to boost up your grade. You will fail. You will probably fail several times, but failing will make you stronger. You need to fail in order to feel the joys of succeeding. How you deal with your failures is how you will be judged. Everything in college is a learning experience, so good luck to you in making your final college decision and remember that everyone messes up at some point.
Best of luck,
The Student Who Was in Your Shoes Just a Short Time Ago
