Welcome and welcome back to TJC for the fall semester. School can be hard thing to re-adjust to or adjust to for the first time. College is a whole new level that some people will blossom at and others will crumble. A lot of students will move away from home and the biggest thing you need to blossom is time management. Starting the semester everything will be great, you will just go to class, no homework, and probably not a job yet. Then most students will find a great club and really plug into college, until you add a job.
This is the point at college that you really blossom or crumble. Balancing a job, school, clubs, social life and keeping up with a clean room or house and hygiene is really hard. College is expensive, so it can feel at times that you have to go to work every time the boss calls. You don’t have to go.
There are also so many opportunities to make new friends and freedom to do whatever you want without checking-in with parent and that kind of freedom can leave you out until 3 a.m. sometimes even later. There are people who can stay up til four in the morning and still go to class at 8 a.m. and do it again the next night, and they will. Some people can’t handle it though, and it makes them feel bad and burns them out over time. You don’t have to stay out every night.
TJC also promises a vibrant student life and once you start joining clubs and groups you can see that there is a lot to do. Some people here will be in two or three clubs and hold an officer position or two and still be able to make every meeting and do more for the club outside of that. Each year the leaders will try to find people to help with this and that for the club and over time helping that much can start to become a heavy burden. You don’t have to help.
The point is that in college you should say yes, you should get a job, join a club and hang out with friends, because those are the things that make it so great, but to be in college you have to go to class and do your homework. Sometimes the only way to blossom is to learn to say no.
