Francesca's Focus: Classes Start In A Month…Now What?

My first set of classes is on Tuesday August 26th. That's right, a little over a month away. Starting at 8:30 every Tuesday and Thursday until fall semester is over, I will be filling my brain with all of the knowledge I need to succeed in this world. Or at least in college. As far as I'm concerned, college is my world for the time being.

I don't know about anybody else, but my course load looks a little something like this: COM 224, COM 225, COM 226 (online), SPN 202, SPN 302. My entire schedule is chock full of classes for my majors. No more gen-eds, no more fooling around. Sometimes I just want to scream I'm so stressed out about it. I don't know how to write "professionally". I still think smiley face emoticons are okay to put in e-mails and texts to adult. My favorite punctuation mark is an exclamation point, and I use pop culture references more than Gretchen Wieners tries using the word fetch. Do you see what I mean?!

A year ago, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I went to a private high school, but even I knew that college was going to be infinitely harder than anything that I had to do my senior year. I don't mean to say this to scare any incoming freshmen, or future freshmen for that matter. The fact of the matter is that you're going to have to try a lot harder in college, but in the end, it is so worth it. I can't describe the heartbreak I got when I received a 91 (A-) on my first college English paper. I never, ever received lower than a 100 my entire senior year on a paper. My finest work in high school didn't even get me an A in college. So the next essay, I worked my bum off to get a 93. The next, a 94 (still A-) and for my final paper I didn't stop editing my last paper until the day it was due. I squealed in the hallway after receiving my final paper back after finishing the exam---I got a 98!

It took me the entire first semester to realize that my best in high school wasn't going to be my best in college. It also took me the entire first semester to realize that an A- wasn't going to kill me, and neither was a B. We had never used letter grades in any of my schools, so seeing pluses and minuses added onto letters became this whole new weight added onto my shoulders. I am here to tell you that a letter grade is not going to make or break you. I've gotten solid B's on exams, with heavy curves, and I got over it.

To mentally prepare myself for the coming semester, I've been trying to do my research on the classes to see what each will entail. Unfortunately, they reworked the journalism major at my university and most of my communications classes are new and don't have a description in the catalogue. Womp womp. I've also been doing some reading and writing. I constantly write (obviously, if I manage to update this blog every day) and revise and write some more, whether it's posts like these where I ramble incessantly, or cheesy fiction that stay in word documents. I read magazines, old newspapers in my uncle's office, online articles, other blogs, books, labels on food. I keep my mind fresh. While I do indulge in a little (okay, a lot) of recreational television watching, staying sharp is one of my top priorities.

Classes start in a month and I still have friends to see and family to bond with and cookies to bake and paths to run on. I have things to buy and books to read and a lot of work to be done in the office. I feel like I have so much to do…so I'm going to do it. Classes start one month from now. I need to just enjoy this time and freak out about failing later. Carpe diem…or whatever.