My First Learning Experience

This semester has been filled with many new experiences and learning inside and outside of the classroom. Though I have learned so much from my intelligent professors and the talented students I am surrounded by, the most important lessons I have learned have not come from a textbook. They have come by experiencing many new things in college and making mistakes. Though these mistakes seemed like the end of the world at the time, what I have learned from them has helped me immeasurably. The most notable lesson I have had to learn is the importance of time management, which is a lesson I definitely learned the hard way. About a month into first semester I had my first applied calculus test. Throughout all of high school math was definitely a weakness of mine so I knew I was going to have to put a lot of work into this class from the beginning. My sorority was having a formal on Thursday night and the test was on Friday morning. I knew if I wanted to go to formal with my friends, I would have to make sure to study for the test beforehand and procrastinating was not an option. But as the week went on I got busy with extracurricular commitments and homework in other classes. I kept putting studying off, thinking I had plenty of time. Finally Thursday arrived and though I had studied a decent amount for the exam, I was not as prepared as I needed to be. I had to make the decision between skipping formal to study and make sure I was prepared for my test or going to formal with all my friends. I made the decision to go to formal and try to wake up early to study for my test that was at eleven. When I woke up in the morning, I was filled with a panicked feeling. I knew I had made the wrong decision and did not have nearly enough time to prepare myself for the test. I did my best to learn as much as I could but when I got to the test, it became clear that I was not prepared. The next class we got the test back and I received a grade that was not up to my standards. I knew in that moment that I had made the mistake of procrastinating and choosing a fun night with my friends rather than studying, a mistake that would take me awhile to recover from. Though my grade is where I want it to be now, I spent the next couple of weeks putting all of my free time into studying for calculus, missing a lot of fun times with my friends which was ironic since I was in this position because I put off studying for the original test to spend time with my friends. I learned through this experience that college is all about finding balance. Though it is important to form relationships with new people and have fun with your friends, school is the most important part of college. These fun times should be saved for times when you have already studied and made sure you have prepared yourself for all your classes. It is hard not to procrastinate and to put school first all the time, but in the long run this is the best decision. Though I had to learn this lesson the hard way, I have realized the importance of finding balance in college.