Tag: College

Lessons From a Fourth Year

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Wake up Early… EVERYDAY

Stop complaining that there are not enough hours in the day when you are sleeping through the two or three most important! I have learned that knocking out the hardest tasks of the day before noon makes for a much better day.

Take B12

This stuff is literally a miracle. A B12 and a cup of coffee will make even the busiest day seem conquerable.

Save Naps for Rainy Sundays

I cannot say that I believe those Buzzfeed posts about nappers being more successful. Successful people know what they need to do and they get it done, without sleeping in between.

Only Wing it if You’re Good at It

Vague, I know, but winging-it is a true art. There are people who can get away with a client pitch with no research, but most of us are not Don Draper so I have learned that it’s better to be overprepared than sorry.

Download a text editor

I use Grammarly. It makes emails to professors and research papers a lot less of a threat.

Stop Giving People Your High School Email Account

Sorry naticus93, you are now demoted to retail store notifications.

Networking is not Just for Seniors

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT wait until senior year to start networking. Build strong, professional relationships, go to events, reach out and ask questions – it will make job searching a lot less stressful when you finally roll around to it.

Ignore FOMO

On any given night you will have around 6,000 options to participate in, and sometimes you’re not going to do a single one of them, or sometimes you simply can’t. It is okay. There will always be more, and you will have a lot more misery thinking about the things you didn’t go to than the actual missing out on them.

Competition should inspire you, not threaten you

Why do we get so upset when other people find success? There is room for all of us to be successful, and frankly, I would rather have friends in high places down the road.

It is okay to not know exactly what it is that you love yet

It took me three majors and a lot of soul searching – to still not even know what my calling is yet. But I am closer and I have tried out a lot of things and I have gotten pretty good at some of them, so I’m learning to enjoy the ride.

Actually do things that scare you

Whether that is applying to an internship that is coveted or going on a study abroad all alone in a place you know nothing about – you will almost never regret it.

Make Decisions for YOU

I spent far too much time making my life decisions for other people, and for a while that meant living a life that was not my own. Sure you need to reach out for advice and wisdom, but make decisions for you. As I have reminded my Gamma Chi girls upwards of one million times, “YOU have to live the life that you make, not the people you are letting make it for you.”

 

 

Sitting on the Fence

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“He has sat on the fence so long that iron has entered his soul”

Remember that time when you couldn’t really wear clothes from the children’s department anymore, but the junior’s department was still a little too mature? The time when you floated around in this gray, gap tween purgatory, lacking a grander identity.

That’s where I am at right now, only instead of not being able to find an outfit for the middle school dance, I can’t find the next move I am supposed to make in this journey we call young adulthood.

I realized the reason I am unable to move forward is because I am quite literally sitting on the fence in almost everything that I do. I have got one foot at my childhood home in North Carolina, and one in my new home in Athens. I have one foot in law school applications and one filling out applications for a career in PR. I have one foot telling me to grow up and take on the responsibility and one telling me to stay a kid as long as I can. I am perched so high upon the fence, that my humpty dumpty moment is approaching inevitably.

I am sitting on the fence, because I thought from up here I could get a good look at my different landscapes, and hopefully be able to make the right decision. That’s not how it works though. When you perch yourself up on a fence, you get just a distant, skewed perspective on what is around you. To get a real view, you have got to dive right in and take everything in from experience.

That is what I have got to do. Just pick a side. Dive in. Experience. Learn. Grow. Learn some more.

Honestly, anything has got to be better than sitting in the middle. So that is my vow, stop teetering on the fence of indecisiveness and lunge off onto a side. What’s the worst that can happen?  So I don’t like a side, I can just climb back over and try out something else.

 

 

 

10 Promises to Senior Year

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This morning I stood manning the Relay for Life booth at the UGA orientation activities fair, scanning the sea of the school’s freshest new faces and wondering how on earth it has already been 3 years since that was me.

In the cliché blink of an eye I have somehow gone from wide eyed freshman to terrified senior.

And with the final year of my carefree youth approaching at a horrifying speed, I have decided to make myself some promises to get the most out of my senior year.

1. Start Saving More Money

Seems fairly straightforward, but it is something I have managed to do fairly little of (I mean, working for free really leaves a lot of money leftover for saving, right?), but in a year I am going have rent and a call phone bill and you know, other adult things, so I am promising to live beneath my means and put some away for a rainy day (overpriced Atlanta apartment).

2. Stop Making Decisions with Everyone Else in Mind

Selfish right? Well I have decided that I am going to stop taking everyone else’s opinion when deciding what to do with my own life. Not that I am not appreciative of insight, I just refuse to live a life that is a culmination of what other people want for me. The biggest thing I have learned in college? Life is way too short to live someone else’s life for any part of it.

3. Stop Eating like I am Still a Freshman

Yep. No more large pizzas just because it is a Tuesday night and they are $5. Taco Bell is not a place that should be making up a (significant) part of my diet anymore. This year I promise to learn to love the salad and embrace cooking at home.

4. Go with the Flow

I vow to stop being so obsessive over things that I cannot change/things I really do not even need to worry about. Deep Breaths.

5. Get Really Good at Something New

I am thinking running or brewing beer. Maybe both.

6. Make More Time for Friends

Internships and clubs and volunteering are great don’t get me wrong, but your people are what really count once we have to leave this place. I promise to take a few more nights off working and make some more memories with the people that matter most.

7. Plan a Bomb Post Grad Trip

I am going to need a buffer before hitting the swing of full-blown adulting.

8. Do Something More to Help Others

Remember not to get too caught up in the hustle and bustle to stop remembering that serving is what we are all called to do.

9. Do More for Myself

Selfish promise numero dos. But really, I promise to take a little time each day to do something for myself.

10. Get to Know a Professor Better

Something I have tried to do more lately, but getting on the good side of a professor is not a privilege to take lightly. I can use all the recommendations I can get.