It has been a magnificently treacherous road to junior year and I am not going to lie about that. Things start off easy because this is a nice school with generous teachers-- teachers who want you to make sure things are together before they give you too much to handle. It is not until after you have been given ample time to gather your schedules, study habits, and just-starting-college jitters that they will (still) give you more than you can handle. At that point, it's all up to you. It is up to you to realize that you can handle it. If you manage your time well enough, appointing work ethic when and where needed, college classes are definitely something you can tackle head-on. It is possible. It is more than possible if you're willing to put in the work. That's the thing, though. You have to be willing to put the work in. My willingness coming in to college was one hundred percent. I told myself I would bury my head in the books and not come out or make friends until I knew I could handle myself. However, I was slapped in the face with the realization that I can make friends effortlessly. As fun as that may sound, with my habit of putting others before myself and being that person that everybody comes to, this was not a good thing. I honestly recommend not even contemplating a social life until about halfway through your first semester. For some of you, it may already be too late. All I can do for you is suggest that you hurry off of that track and on to the right one. Don't be like me. If I would simply have used my resources and taken advice given to me from the get-go, I would have had amazing grades. I had the potential to be that person who seems like they're always ahead. I didn't realize at the time, though, that those people are usually ahead because they do their work. They do it immediately regardless of the due dates. Do your work. If there was one thing I had to choose to stress, it would be to do your work. Friends are second. Parties are second. Fun comes second. Do your work FIRST and do it WELL, not lazily... Then, go club-hopping.

I have always had a horrible sense of time. My brother has been making fun of me for it since I was three and the sad part is that I haven't gotten any better. If we had chicken last night for dinner, I may think it was a week ago. If  I'm assigned a paper due in three days, somehow my brain will compute that I have two weeks and time to spare. Clearly, with age, this problem would become more and more of an issue. I hardly sleep, never remember important dates until crunch time, and procrastination has become my middle name. Yet, somehow, I manage to maintain decent grades. If I simply put in a little more forethought and effort, my decent grades would jump to great grades. I may not be the best example, nor am I in the best place to be giving advice, but I'm going to give it, anyway. Know that work is work and it has to be done. If you want to torture yourself and hang out until two in the morning while English and History homework await you, go ahead. Just be prepared for stress, exhaustion, the struggle to stay awake in class, and never being up to ability. Better yet, just don't put yourself through it. Don't procrastinate.