During my freshman and sophomore year, I did not work during the school year except on breaks and it was awesome. I could get all of my homework done, have a decent social life, and get to participate in clubs. I loved it and had such a fun experience meeting new people and not having to stay in every weekend. It can be saddening hearing friends going to visit other friends at school on the weekends and not having to worry. It makes me laugh when people say they have to work a whole weekend and I’m thinking I do that every weekend. I had an internship that I didn’t have to work the first three weekends of it and I was pleasantly surprised.
I am probably a lot more financially stable than many of those people who go out multiple times a week or have other activities going. That is fine with me because then I will succeed in the real world where there are random responsibilities that need to be paid for and I know how to budget my life out accordingly.
Now I am taking 400 level writing and reading intensive classes, on an executive board, write for Her Campus, work 10 hours a week, and rarely get to spend time with friends that are not involved in my organizations. There are times that I feel lonely and wish that I could go get lunch or dinner with someone and having engaging conversation that will take my troubles away from me for at least a little bit.
I am not one of those students who gets to go to the bar at least once week or multiple times in a week for various weeks. At times, I am jealous of those people who get to go out and go to parks, and go do a lot of fun stuff. I usually do not get a lot of notice before friends go out and do something fun. I really want to go out with them but there are weekends that no invites come so I always want to be prepared with something to do. There is nothing worse than a weekend where you get everything done and no one is around or wants to do anything so you just sit around trying to do something fun.
I do know that my time management skills are not the best and I can at times take longer to finish an assignment than others. There will always be people smarter than me that can just barely pay attention in class, not really take notes, and pass the tests with flying colors. I am one of those students who cannot miss a class because I will get behind and still won’t do anywhere as good as those people mentioned above. It can be quite frustrating at times hearing when other people do better on tests than me and things seem to come naturally to them. I have to take notes on everything, read over all of the material, study for hours, not skip a class, and still might even fail a test.
All in all, I like that I am able to buy myself experiences and stuff without having to watch every penny. Moral of the story is that not to work a lot during your freshman and sophomore years because you want to gain friendships during the time and later you will have monthly bills to pay so you will have to work.