Got to keep your blood flowing right through your last day in English!

Now that it’s January, and most of your applications have been sent, you might be feeling a bit relaxed. In fact, you might be feeling almost too relaxed. Some of you may have already been accepted to your dream school and popped the top off a nice cold bottle of Martinelli’s to celebrate.  So why study?  No one cares anymore, do they?

Cheers and congratulations to all of you for getting this far! The next step is not an easy one. So stay awake out there. Your dream is just beginning. There is a future ahead of you, no matter your present state of applications. Not only do you need decent semester grades, but you also need to keep your wits about you. Serious study is in your future. You have the right time now, this semester, to tweak your study habits and prepare yourself for what is to come. Besides, how would you feel to see a final report card full of C’s or worse?  That’s not the college-bound you.  I know that relaxing sounds great right now, but I also know that many of you would panic to ever earn low grades.

We hear back from freshmen and sophomores all the time that their college classes are interesting and sometimes even easy. That’s freshman year. By junior year, just like in high school, the difficulty ramps up. College students have finished their core classes and are now upperclassmen studying their major. If you are majoring in business or engineering, junior year is when you are accepted into “The School of…” Your work is on a professional level.  Think about that as you skip studying for your literature exam this week. Junior year of college is just a few years from now. You’re going to need to have drive and ambition. Now’s the time. Do your work, and press on.

You’ve worked hard to reach this point, but get real. Life is ahead of you and you need to be ready for what is to come. You might be academically prepared for college, but make no mistake. It might start easy, but it’s not going to stay that way. Your last semester of senior year offers you a tremendous opportunity for self-reflection. Where are your weaknesses and how can you strengthen them?  Are you a poor note taker or do you take too many notes and miss the nuances of the lecture?  Are you enjoying your reading or do you just do what needs to be done?  Is your writing truly passionate, informative, and exact?

Now that you’re heading off with a sea of other students to Dream U, you want to be at your best.  Think of yourself as an athlete who just made the team.  This is not the time to break open the potato chips and flip on the TV. You’ve got to run your mile, do those push ups, and lift weights. The game awaits you, the team needs you. Likewise, keep those brain cells active with top academic performance. The difference between this semester and any that came before it is that now you study because you like the subject.  That’s the way to prepare for a stellar college “game!”