To my dear freshmen self,
I know you might not care about what I have to say, but I really wish you would. It would make our life a whole lot easier, but I’ll try anyways.
Right now, your friends and living in the moment might seem more important, but in three years those same friends will drive down to Mexico to hook up with strippers. Do you really want to do that? Think about it. Staying home and studying for a History 108 class that you will end up getting a C in might not seem rewarding in the moment, but it will in the long run.
You just have to start somewhere.
Sure, sitting on the hardwood floor at 3 a.m. with over 100 flashcards sprawled around you for a final you will fail doesn’t sound like a great way to spend your night, but during those all-nighters you will learn more than just early American history. You will learn about responsibility and discipline. You will learn about hard work and how to effectively study. These lessons will benefit you in the future.
Also, since you clearly didn’t pay attention in lecture, the professor made the final non-cumulative, not cumulative.
When your second semester rolls by, you will receive your second C, but that one will feel different. You won’t feel the guilt weighing you down. Unlike history, for geography you will study for every test in advance.
Eventually you will lose track of the amount of times you drew diagrams of clouds, rock formations and the greenhouse effect over and over again on your whiteboard. You will finish the final as one of the last 14 students who took on the challenge and didn’t drop the class.
Sure, you won’t get the best grade ever, but you will feel better knowing that you gave it your all.
You will face many difficulties your freshmen year, but what you learned from them will set the foundation for the rest of your college career. Even if your first year feels a little bumpy, and you might not have done as well as you thought you would have, don’t freak out. Learn where you went wrong and apply it to your next semester, and soon you will get better as you go.
Before you know it, you will go from the high school girl who didn’t know how to study, to the college girl that people go to for study advice.
When the time comes, you will begin to wonder if the stress and frustration will amount to anything. Yes, it will all turn out for the best, because in a few years from now you will spend your weekend in your apartment at Berkeley reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.
This might not sound exciting and believe me you won’t even remotely enjoy it, but you will reflect on how far you have come and you will see it as a rewarding experience, so don’t give up.
You can do it,
Present Me
