The most frustrating thing to encounter while being in college is to not meeting your standards and those of your mentors and parents as well. Another equally frustrating – maybe even more frustrating – element in life is trying your hardest but failing.

Generally speaking, most college students only have to get a bachelor’s degree. That only leaves you four years to gain lifelong friends, grasp the concept of living by yourself, maintain a social life, get good grades and meet standards.

The overwhelming aspect that comes with college will most likely never leave. When you finally get the hang of a class, it’s the end of the semester and you have to brace yourself for a new professor with a different teaching style.

That’s exactly how I feel each semester. Although, I maintain a mellow mood and tend to not freak out, it is still overwhelming – I’m just awful with emotions.

High school never taught me how to juggle extremely demanding classes, how to deal with relationships or heartbreaks.

“Back in school, they never taught us what we needed to know like how to deal with despair or someone breakin’ your heart,” is a line from one of my favorite songs, preformed by Brand New.

I guess experience is supposed to teach you how to fall and if you’re strong enough, how to pick yourself back up. Which is exactly why I’m so stubborn and do things on my own – for the experience.

At times, I will admit that I do get caught up in my social life more than school, but I end up catching myself before I even fall. It’s hard to not get caught up in a social life when you have roommates and there’s always something more fun to do than reading a book for class or studying.

Living up to another person’s standards is not only degrading yourself in a way, but you lose the meaning of doing something for yourself. It is also upsetting when you let yourself and others down because you failed.

From experience, most people seem to be afraid of rejection and failure. The word failure is such a resilient word that I can’t help but emphasis the “f,” giving it a heavier effect.

I hate being cliché, but if you try your hardest and it shows, that’s all you can do, especially when it comes to a harder class or a task at your job.

So far, college has taught me seven valuable lessons.

The seven valuable lessons are how to learn, how to study, loving myself, self-discipline, procrastinating harder than ever, dreaming big and last but certainly not least is how to email.

I struggled with all of these several years ago, but with a strong and positive support group and being highly motivated, I finally got all of these down.

College is a life-long journey that allows you to pursue a dream and also find out who you are and what your purpose is in life.

COLLEEN LANGHAM

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