Dear Freshman, by Vivian

Dear Freshman, by Vivian - November 2014 Scholarship Essay

Dear Freshman,

Four more years. Four more years of school and you’re done. The next four years of your life will help to determine who are and what you do after you graduate. Will you join the military or enter the workforce upon graduation? Do you want to go to college? What kind of person do you want to be? These were some of questions I faced when entering high school and all I could think of at the time was, “are you kidding me?” I had gone from having to walk in single file to the cafeteria, to suddenly being forced to think about life decisions.

“You will never be as young and carefree as you are now,” my mom would tell me. While that phrase is applicable at any point in life, you’ll realize your list of responsibilities will grow as you get older. In high school, what you want to be doing and what you need to be doing won’t add up. The pressures of attaining and maintaining good grades, high test scores, and extracurricular activities will undoubtedly clash with your desire to have a social life. Fights with parents will be had and the stressful process of choosing the right path for you will come sooner than you think. Yet, you will never be as carefree as you were when you were in high school. Embrace it. You have one role as a high school freshman: you are a student. The only responsibility you have to yourself is to be the best student and person you can be. The year after that you will be a sophomore, with more on your “To-Do” list and harder classes to take. Soon enough you’ll be a junior, and the balancing act between being a student and preparing for the real world will be upon you. Sure, you’ll be anxiously anticipating the arrival of senior year, and when it comes it’ll seem as though you’re finally free. Finally, you will realize it’ll never be as easy as it was in high school. Responsibilities add up the older you get.

“You’ll never be as young and carefree as you are now.” It took me longer than it should’ve to understand what it was my mom meant by that. I understood carefree to mean a reckless disregard for responsibility, and during my freshman year my grades came to reflect that. That phrase wasn’t telling me to be young and carefree. It meant I would never be a high school freshman again, that I would never have as little responsibility as I did then. Instead of joining a club or keeping up with my grades, I spent a year I would never get back trying to be “cool,” focusing too much on fitting in and not enough on school. I had inadvertently added more pressure to raise my GPA and build my resume over the next three years because I didn’t want to do it right the first time. My advice to you: do it right the first time. Give it the best shot you’ve got. The easier you make it on yourself by doing it right the first time, the less amount of avoidable stress you’ll be adding to your already growing list of responsibility. You'll come across some hurdles, and in overcoming them you'll discover new things about you. Use opportunities and adversity to create yourself, get involved, join clubs and find your passion, fulfill your obligations, and make the most of the time you have there. You only get to do it once.

Wishing you all the best,
A College Undergraduate and Future Lawyer