Graduating from high school is one of the most satisfying and simultaneously scary times of your life. For the first time, you are faced with the task of navigating yourself to a successful future. Advice floods in from everybody in all directions and eventually you have acquired so much information about how to do well in college that it starts to become confusing and maybe even contradictory. Counselors and teachers try to generalize college life on a single sheet of paper, but the fact is that college is as unique as the individuals enrolled in it.
Many people say the best way to get through college with the best grades possible is to study most of the time and relax the rest of the time. While this is a terrific strategy, the whole social aspect of the college life is completely ignored. Social life plays a large role in overall well-being. College offers the best chance you will ever have to surround yourself with great people for the rest of your life. Once you build a solid foundation of friends, you will be able to assist each other in achieving the ultimate goal—graduating with good grades.
You will need to create schedules for yourself to manage your time. It is sometimes difficult for students to separate having fun and studying. If you want to make it through college, you must go to class. Oftentimes students fail out because they completely neglect going to class and doing required assignments. And then there’s the complete opposite side, the students who graduate with a 4.0 grade point average but have never been to a social event in their college career. The key to success is balance. What is the point of spending approximately four years in the same place if you build no supportive relationships, good memories or funny stories?
Obviously, college is no cake-walk. You will sometimes need to lock yourself in your room and turn off your cell phone for a few hours to crack down on loaded projects and abandon all contact from the outside world. But after you are finished with the project and you know you nailed it, you should reward yourself by relaxing and having a good time. As long as there is good balance of work and play, you should have few problems. And as long as you have your work-time designated in a time slot before your down-time, you should be able to juggle the two effortlessly and, best of all, happily. To be successful, you need to create your own unique schedule; if one thing doesn’t work, shift your schedule around until it does. When you and your best friends finally graduate, you can reminisce about all the great times you’ve had together, and talk about how college wasn’t as difficult as you once thought it was going to be.
Editorial provided by Mathew Matusek, Journalist, Slippery Rock University Graduate.
http://www.thehighschoolgraduate.com/editorial/win_college.htm
