I learned three important things in college – to use a library, to memorise quickly and visually, to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes. ~Agnes DeMille
With the recent release of CAPE and CSEC results, many students have collected their last high school ‘report card’ and soon colleges will be full of newly-minted freshmen. It takes me back to my first year at UWI: everything was so new and exciting – and a bit intimidating. It was a whole new ballgame – full of different rules and new players.
There were some students already with degrees, who were already comfortable with the whole university shtick. And then there were callow students like me who were “fresh” out of high school. And maybe we now know the origin of “freshmen”?
But now I’m in my fourth year, and I can’t believe how fast time has passed. I’m happy to say I’ve learnt a lot the past couple of years in university – and not just about anatomy. One of the most important lessons I learnt was about “stick-to-it-ivness”. The only way you can be guaranteed success is if you stick to things – even if they’re not going perfectly at the moment. You can’t just chuck it in at the first sign of trouble or even at the first indication that the road ahead has more bumps and pot-holes than my street in Guyana.
There’s that old cliché that says the measure of a person isn’t how many times they fall, but instead how many times they get back up again. And as with most clichés, it’s true. The greatest moments are those times when you can scrape yourself from the floor, rise up again after being faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem – and then prevail.
At every step of your life there will be new problems, problems that seem like the most difficult thing in the world to deal with. But if you stick to things and not just jump off and abandon ship, the end-result will be so worth it all.
I can’t emphasise enough, the importance of setting realistic goals and specific deadlines for achieving those goals. And this assumes you set goals and not just drift, right? Especially for students, nearing the end of the semester when the teachers start to pile on those assignments. It gets really easy to lose track of what needs to be done. Taking the time to plan ahead for what needs to be done really saves time in the long run – especially if you’re a serial procrastinator like I am.
By managing your time better and setting goals and deadlines, you can avoid those last minute frantic all-nighters that are most times rather counterproductive. Especially on the nerves!
But it’s not all work and no play either – I think it’s important to reward ourselves every now and again even if it’s just with little things. I mean, it’s not that we should be constantly patting ourselves on the back for every single thing we do. But sometimes it’s nice to give ourselves a little treat for achieving our goals.
And lastly, the best advice I can give to the incoming college freshmen is that they should try to enjoy college. It truly is a wonderful time. And of course, it’s the last “hurrah” before adulthood and its accompanying responsibilities truly set in.
