the road to the last day of college... part 1

five and a half years of college. and that was just for a bachelor’s degree. simultaneously getting rid of the ex-boyfriend and moving out of my parents’ house for the first time gave me a huge burst of freedom and i lived it up to the umpteenth degree. i suddenly realized that guys actually liked me, contrary to what the ex had drilled into my head, and my friends and i would go wild four nights a week at local fraternity and house parties. our busy weekends concluded with sunday night swing dancing and then it was back to classes for the week. i was asked to join our school’s social council and had a hand in planning every social event that year. what more could i want?
my story probably sounds very similar to most college students’ experiences, except for the whole studying part. graduating high school with honors had been a breeze for me, but this college thing was a whole new ballgame. most of my friends spent their non-partying hours in the library, buried in the books, but i was busy working 20-30 hours a week for an engineering firm and then taking five dance classes a week. when was i supposed to fit in library time? unfortunately, i didn’t try and didn’t think that i needed to. i would occasionally meet a friend at the library to study for a class together, but my study skills were extremely underdeveloped.
at the end of the first semester of my sophomore year, i completely stopped partying. i had started going to this church thing on tuesday nights and one night, it totally changed my life. in an instant, i knew that the partying and drinking had to stop and that i had to make some changes or else my life was going to take some really bad turns. those changes were astonishingly easy for me to make, but sadly, i had already created some horrible study habits (rather, non-study habits) and i didn’t know how to fix them. i continued working 30+ hours a week for the engineering firm and taking numerous dance classes. those were my priorities, and i figured that since the people around me loved me and i was very good at my job, i would quickly and successfully finish college and get on with my career. riiiight. i was obviously very ignorant and reality was coming at me like a freight train.