College?!

Fresh out of high school, it’s easy to think that college is going to be a breeze. It’s easy to think you can sleep in until noon every day, throw together a paper, and be done. In high school, it was easy to look at your older peers in college and think that they have the easy road. They didn’t have to deal with the same kids every day, they didn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn, and they only had the same class once a week. Sure, it seems simple enough to be a college student. While it is certainly easier than living the high school life, college is not an easy thing; it requires a lot of hard work. To succeed in college, you must end the habit of procrastination, you must be dedicated, and you must learn to go with the flow.
By high school, we had all learned too well how to procrastinate. It was easy to get away with when your teachers only wanted a finished assignment from you. I know of many times that I Aced a paper I just put together the night before simply because not many people tried hard enough to even throw a paper together. We get in the habit of putting things off until the last minute because we can get away with it. In high school, it’s easy to pass off really good grades without hardly lifting a finger. In college, however, procrastination will often leave you stressed and out of luck. Tests are harder, assignments are harder, and the teachers are harder on you. So when you decided to put off your paper until the night before it’s due, chances are your professor will be able to tell and give you the grade you deserve: an F or a D. They don’t tolerate many excuses, and while they are not totally mean all of the time, you will usually get somewhat of an attitude when you start making excuses for why you didn’t turn in your homework. It’s insanely tempting to procrastinate in college. There’s always a party down the hall, there’s always friends to hang out with, and you don’t have your parents there breathing down your back. With all of the commotion and fun going on, school work is probably one of the last things on your mind. Procrastination is a hard habit to break, but if you are able to, it’s the first step in your college success.
Dedication is another key factor in being successful in your college career. If you are not dedicated, you lose sight of why you are at college to begin with: to learn and earn your degree. Professors don’t care if you don’t have your homework in; you have to care. They aren’t going to baby you and make sure your assignments are in so you can show your good grades to mommy and daddy. If you fail a course, you pay to retake it, simple as that. You have to keep your main goal in mind, and that is to graduate with good grades. It is certainly hard whenever there are so many distractions around you, but if you keep that dedication it takes to keep up with homework and have good study habits, it will be worth the trouble. When you are sitting in your dorm at night with your books out studying, you have to remind yourself that you are doing all of this hard work in order to be successful later in life. You will never regret hard work in college.
Lastly, to succeed in college, you must learn to go with the flow. While structure is nice and everything, sometimes college just doesn’t work like that. Occasionally you might have to change your schedule for a class, or change your schedule in order to make more time for studying. You must be able to handle that. Also, however, you must learn to go with the flow because you will enjoy college more that way. Taking on this kind of attitude will help you maximize your college experience by allowing you more opportunities to experience things and make friends. Making friends is very essential to college. Your friends become your support group because they are all dealing with college life just like you.
While it is hard to transition from high school to college, if you’re prepared, making the switch will be a little easier on you. Knocking off the habit of procrastination early on will help you be more successful. Like anything else, college also requires dedication. If you are just dreading college and you couldn’t care less about it, college probably isn’t for you. You have to want to be here. Lastly, college is a great experience; learn how to go with the flow and have fun. You can work hard while staying focused on school. It may not be easy to be successful in college, but it sure is possible.