The World at Your Fingertips by Nicole

The World at Your Fingertips by Nicole - April 2016 Scholarship Essay

Going to college is the beginning of a new chapter. You're suddenly away from your hometown where you have a strong support system like your friends and your family. You have to be responsible for your own actions and you're not watched closely anymore. You go from raising your hand to go to the bathroom to taking drastic steps towards your future. You create your own schedules, you're in charge of whether you show up to class or not, and you're no longer guided by your teachers and your parents. For the most part, you learn on your own what you need to do and the consequences if you don't achieve those things.

The media portrays college as a big party. Frat houses, loud music, flashy lights. In reality, that's only one small portion of it. There's the excessive amount of homework, studying, and effort in maintaining your mental and physical health. There will be many long nights of essay writing, project making, and again, I emphasize, studying. With all of this on your plate, it's still important to make sure you have time for yourself and time for your friends, because they'll be struggling in almost all of the same aspects as yourself. Parties and indulging sounds fun, even to me, but sadly, there's so many other things to worry about when you're on your way to achieving your goals and dreams. It's even harder to have these wild and crazy experiences when you have a job to support yourself, as well. It's a lot to take in considering in high school, you might have had a small job and a small amount of homework and studying. This doesn't include if you want to join a sport or club. It's a lot to handle.

When I first came to college, it was hard for me to adjust to the amount of work I had. At first, I thought I was keeping up with it at a relatively fast pace, but as the semester goes on, there's more projects, tests, and the dreaded midterms, of course. I found myself hanging out with my friends late into the night and falling behind on sleep and schoolwork. It was exhausting, too, because I also have a job on campus. I realized that I needed to get my grades up in order to accomplish my goals. It's so easy to fall into the routine of procrastinating and spending too much time socializing and not enough time focusing on the things that matter. This is one of the number one causes that students drop out after their first semester. When you're in high school, you typically have a curfew and your parents are more strict about where you go and how well you're doing in school. That's why it's so hard to adjust in college; because you're in control of yourself now.

If I could give advice to any younger students that want to achieve their dreams and goals, and have as much passion inside of them that I have inside of myself for my future career, I would tell them to have a lot of self-control. It's easy to fall into bad lifestyle choices and bad habits. You really have to fight for your dreams and what you want. It's easy to talk to your friends for hours. It's easy to stay up late and go to parties. It's definitely not an easy task to sit down and focus on a research project or a 5-page essay, but in the end, it'll be worth it. It's okay to go to parties and hang out with your friends, but everything needs to be in moderation. Make time for yourself and make time for your friends in order to keep you stable and less alone, but make sure you control yourself and focus on the whole reason you applied to college to begin with. The world is at your fingertips if you let it be.