By CampusSplash.com blogger and National Society of Collegiate Scholars Founder Steve Loflin.
Do you make new year's resolutions? Do you look at January 01 as the opportunity to revisit, refresh and recommit to your priorities? Do you want to always be better? Try harder? Or maybe even start over?
Well, welcome to a new semester! College is a unique experience that gets started over and over and over again until you finally arrive at your graduation day. You have the chance to learn, grow and even make mistakes that will add value to your experience in so many ways that will actually make you a much better person at graduation.
Here are five resolutions that will add value to your college experience:
1 - Make good grades a priority.
Your grade point average is the equivalent of your academic credit score. A GPA is a very clear indicator about where your priorities are and it is very hard to start making a GPA tremendously better after a few disasters. You cannot go back and get better grades. You have to do it from the beginning.
2 - Reevaluate your friends.
You will meet people in college who will be your friends for life. You also have choices about people you spend your time with everyday. Take a good look and decide if you are surrounding yourself with people who are helping you become a better and inspiring you toward success....or people who are becoming excuses and obstacles to getting where you know you want to go.
3 - Join a new club or organization.
Join at least one new club every semester and reassess and eliminate the clubs that are not adding any value to your college experience. Too many students join clubs their first semester and stop exploring the variety of opportunities that make college such a great place to be. Get out of your comfort zone and join something that will expose you to fresh and new experiences. You will meet different people and potentially discover new things that could take your life into an entirely different direction.
4 - Be open-minded about your future.
Are you happy with your major? Do you know why you chose the major you are pursuing? Have you truly thought about what you enjoy and how you can make sure your career and future is aligned with creating your happiness. Who is someone you admire who does exactly what you think you'd like to do? Or is there a professor on campus who teaches something that you think would make you happy? Go meet them. You will be surprised at how many people love to talk about how they got to where they are - and will really appreciate the opportunity to help you.
5 - Say thank you more.
When was the last time you said thank you to a professor? Or your Resident Assistant? Or someone on campus who is working hard to make sure you have a great college experience? Are you are too quick to complain about things that may not be working perfectly that you overlook the things that go extremely well everyday? I guarantee you if you take a moment to say thank you - and notice the positive in everyday - you will make someone happy and you will be much happier too.
Make sure you are creating the college experience that you want by investing time and energy into making sure you are maximizing every opportunity and only spending time doing the things that contribute to your happiness and getting you to where you want to go.
Read more on CampusSplash.com!