For the next week, any room with a Wi-Fi connection and four walls will be overrun by over-caffeinated undergrads frantically typing, highlighting or scribbling. Most conversations will be haunted by looming deadlines, libraries will be filled to capacity and everyone in your life will claim to be "burnt out." With the end of the semester comes not only a heightened state of anxiety, but also the opportunity to reflect on any lessons learned in the last four months (and the chance to successfully procrastinate at the same time).
The Fall semester is traditionally characterized as the busiest time of the year for college students, and for good reason. After a summer of pesky general education courses, arguing with your parents over your high school-era 11 p.m. curfew or masquerading as a real adult at your unpaid internship, practically everyone’s ready to dive back into school as soon as August rolls around. But before we know it, those four months have passed in a blur of late-night panic, and we’re left wondering what it all meant and what Spring could possibly bring.
Despite this semester feeling like one prolonged stumble, I did learn a few things along the way. Hopefully you identify with at least one of these delayed revelations.
1. Don’t be afraid to take on a new responsibility. It may seem impossible to factor another obligation into your life, but if you truly care about it, you’ll make it work. Four months ago, I was given the opportunity to have my own column in the Alligator, and I almost didn’t take it. I was offered it while running on a sleep deficit and corralling 1,800 bright-eyed girls around Sorority Row. In the midst of that chaos, I couldn’t imagine taking on another responsibility. I accepted on a whim, and now I couldn’t imagine my life without it.
2. Learn how to grow a thick skin. Having an outlet to publish your thoughts to 50,000 people may seem idyllic, but it forces you to accept the reality that every week, someone is going to disagree with you. Some of them may keep their thoughts to themselves, and others may write a long-winded letter to the editor calling you "ignorant." Sensitivity has always been one of my weaknesses, but I was forced to quickly overcome it or lose something I loved. There’s no such thing as a neutral topic, and you have to live with the likelihood that somewhere, somehow, you’re going to offend someone. Have a backbone and stand behind your views — just don’t be an asshole about it.
3. Enjoy where you are in life. With each day, more of my friends receive acceptances from graduate schools and make plans to embark on that ever-elusive journey to adulthood. It’s easy to forget I’m not tagging along, and it is not so easy to imagine being at UF without them. Junior year is unique in that you feel so far removed from both the energetic freshmen anxiously cramming for What is the Good Life? and the jaded seniors ruminating about their imminent departure. Sometimes it’s hard to enjoy this bizarre limbo state, but it’s a matter of taking it day by day.
4. Pretending you have your life together is half the battle. I’ll be the first to admit I typically have no idea what I’m doing in most situations. However, for some unbeknownst reason, people mistakenly believe I "really have my life together." I’m not totally sure what this means other than I apparently don’t give off the impression of someone who’s constantly anxious about something… which, let me be clear, I am. But when you take a step back and see yourself from someone else’s perspective, you’ll be surprised how far you’ve come in the last month, semester or year.
So take a break from catastrophizing and consider your own semester. It may have been the hardest one yet, but at least you learned something along the way.
Marisa Papenfuss is a UF English junior. Her column appears on Tuesdays.
