Why are you here?

No, not in the existentialist sense – we don’t care why you think you’re on earth. What we, at The Knight, want you to consider is less philosophical.

Why are you here, at Gannon?

Is it to learn the functions of the all the muscles in the human body or is it to learn how many keg stands you can do before throwing them back up?

With a semester under your belt, it’s time for you freshmen to complete a little self-assessment of your first few months. Looking at your grades and judging your involvement in organizations around campus, you should be able to tell whether you seized the day or let the day seize you.

If you’re feeling the pressure of finals week a little more than your friends in the same major, you may have been too busy doing the latter. But if your grades are acceptable and you’re happy as can be in your new digs at Gannon then you’re following the straight and narrow.

However, if you’re struggling to get by, it’s time to reexamine whether you belong in the university setting. But the issue may not be as drastic as that.

It might be as minor as a major change. If you don’t like what you’re learning about now, chances are you won’t like it 15 years from now when you’re doing it for a living. And if that’s the case, it’s probably cutting into any desire to study.

And if that isn’t it, it might be as simple as refocusing yourself. It might be obvious now that a little too much time was spent with red cups. If so, making a u-turn during your college career only takes a conscious effort to get into the library, open up the book and put the time in.

It doesn’t matter whether your first few months consisted of more downs than ups, just remember that one semester won’t doom your college career.