Keeping the right mindset is paramount
A healthy mind is the easiest way to achieve a happy stress free life. Keeping a healthy mind in college is hard with all of the distractions that come with it. The easiest way to make sure you stay on track is by surrounding yourself with the right people.
Surround yourself with the right people!!!
You meet a lot of different people in college from many different backgrounds. It is important to make sure that you surround yourself with the best possible people throughout this time. If you hangout with the wrong crowd it can be very easy to fall off and not do well in school. It is just as easy to stay focused and motivated if you hangout with the right crowd.
Past Experiences
As a member of a fraternity at this school I know how easy it is to fall into doing the wrong things with the wrong people. There are endless opportunities to go out and have fun drinking from Tuesday night sorority mixers to Saturday gameday tailgates. The temptation is definitely there.
I used to think college was all about having fun and hanging out with your friends. It almost felt necessary for me to go out and see all of my other friends that would go out too. Finding people in my fraternity to lean on about this was not hard. I told my brothers I needed to start doing better and they have all been helping me out. From making sure I'm up in the morning to meeting at the library in groups to do homework, my friends have helped me.
New Horizons
I have been able to draw strength from my friends during this transitional period. Having a reliable group of friends to meet at the library and do work with has been as good for my confidence as it has been for my grades. I feel the love from my fraternity brothers and I want to do better because of all the help they are providing me.
Now that I am older and I am preparing myself for a post-college life being with the right people is as important as it has ever been. Forging a bond with people now can last a lifetime and I want to have friends that have similar goals as me.
The Exhibit
Of all the experiments I ran this one involved collecting the least amount of data. The experiment was telling my friends that I am struggling and seeing how reached out. I do not know how many of my 110 fraternity brothers were at chapter that day. Since I got up in front of my friends and asked for strength I have been receiving close to 30 messages a week asking me to go study or just meet them in the library. There is no way to quantify that data because it is all coming from love. If my friends did not care they would have ignored me and let me fail. But, no. They banded together and reached out to me in hopes to turn my life around here at Clemson.
Mindset Change
The biggest way my friends have helped me throughout this transitional period is by helping me get in tune with my inner guide. My friends show me tough love and if I slack off they get real with me while telling me that I can't afford to not do well. In just two weeks I got over 30 messages asking to go to the library and study. I have switched from spending time from the wrong to the right people and have empirical evidence that it has helped me. Not only have my past test grades for every class gone up, my attendance has been better, and I have never been happier.
I used to play my inner defender all of the time. I always think I can do the least and still accomplish things even when sometimes its too late. In semesters past I would always say that I would get my act together next week. it would never happen. I would then go and sit around defending the choice I had made not to be a good student. I would blame missing class on a ride not coming or on a friend for asking me to go to the gym. That needed to change. I saw it and my support group saw it.
By being "real" with me, my friends have been able to keep me focused and keep my mindset on that of an inner guide. I now see things as they are and am a better college student as a result.