Never in my life had I completed a large assignment only a few hours before its due date. That was the case–until last week.
The first month or so of classes had been fairly smooth, getting all of my work done easily and feeling pretty comfortable overall. Socially, my friends and I get along great, and I’ve gotten plugged into different groups on campus. I feel settled in to my dorm, and the college life is now just an everyday reality instead of a new concept.
It was last week when I found out how everything can hit at once. I had four papers due in quick succession for different classes, a rather large test, and commitments to fulfill for some organizations that I’m involved in. On top of that, I was off campus for a school activity for an entire day out of the week, leaving me with one less day to work on my assignments. This was also the week that I started to feel the impact of homesickness. Obviously, this was not my best week ever.
I have to admit that by the time the week was up, I was feeling pretty disheartened. Thankfully, my great new friends and family all encouraged me and made me remember why I’m going through college: to be qualified for the career I want and to prepare for the life that God has called me to live. Without these people pouring into my life, it would be difficult to focus my eyes on my end goal, allowing immediate obstacles to take my attention.
All of the worry and rushing of trying to write papers on time made me realize that I needed to look ahead more on each class syllabus to start working ahead on assignments. Hindsight is always 20/20, right? College is a lot more individualized than high school, making you liable for contacting professors for missed work and asking for help.
I lived and learned, and Saturday I put my knowledge to action by jumping ahead and finished two papers that were due this week. The next big thing to tackle will be midterms next week, meaning another learning curve will be taking place! For now, you can bet that there is a lot of late night studying in preparation to conquer my first set of midterms!
Stay Taboriffic!