First off, I’d like to say that I’ve only been in college for a month. So my Word from the Real World as of now is still quite new, still fresh with the freshman excitement that 7th graders might be experiencing in BSGE right now.
Secondly, I’d like to dispel some myths about college life that I previously believed.
College is not easy. Often in BSGE your teachers like to say, “College is going to be so smooth after BSGE,” or will tell those stories you’ve heard a hundred times about alumni coming back with tears in their eyes about how grateful they are that BSGE put them to the top of their class at their new university. It really depends on where you go for college and what you’re studying. Some of my graduating class members who are attending SUNYs claim to have loads of free time and seem to finish their homework in 2 hours or so. However others who also go to SUNYs say the homework load and pressure hasn’t changed since BSGE. These students tend to be those in five-year programs or have complicated Math/Science majors.
Unfortunately for me, I actually do more homework at Babson College than my years at BSGE – even my junior and senior years. But at the same time, even though you have a lot more work in college, you also have a lot more time in general. You’re constantly being surrounded by new and incredibly interesting people from around the world who are procrastinating just as hard as you are for the Accounting or Business Analytics work due the next day. There were way too many times in the first weeks of school when I would go watch old episodes of SVU in my friend’s room, or order take-out from the local Thai place with my dorm floor, or frantically jump in the Zipcar to take an late night drive to the grocery store. Top that off with the fact that I’m living in a quad – yes, four girls with four beds and four dressers packed with clothes in one big room – the distractions are endless.
But you learn to make it work. I think BSGE did help me with time management, I mean I’m still not as efficient as I’d like to be, but I know had I not went to BSGE I would have been all over the place. It also helped me with my self-confidence since people actually know what the International Baccalaureate program is here, and have big respect for it as well. (Suck it, APs!)
One thing that BSGE did not teach me, but I’ve learned through my first month of school as well, is that you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously. As I reflect on my previous six years, I notice that when you’re going to a really small school in which there’s 68 kids in your graduating class, your high school world becomes a bubble. You forget that a lot of the little things you’re stressing over and doubting yourself over will have no value in the future.
But as I came to Babson and I met so many people, whether students or faculty, many who were so free-spirited and impressive, you notice a pattern. They don’t really care about what others think. They do things for themselves, fully knowing who they are and what they want from the world. Everyone still has these amazing qualities and experiences, but when they talk about it, it’s not to prove something. They understand that the world is such a huge place, and life is short and filled with opportunity, so why waste it by sweating the small things.
I didn’t think I would get this deep on my first “Word from the Real World” but I guess that’s what happens when you’re hunched over your laptop in the common room, mug of Raisin Bran Crunch cereal in one hand and your Foundations of Entrepreneurship textbook in the other. Until next time, Bacc Rag! xx
P.S – I went to the first meeting of the Babson Free Press newspaper, and was thoroughly disappointed. Bacc Rag >>> ALL DAY.
The BACC Rag 