New Year’s Resolutions For College Students That Are Actually Possible to Achieve
By Lauren Brose ‘15
We all have our opinions on 2015. If I could put mine into one word, it’d be tumultuous because 1) the word tumultuous cracks me up and I love using it and 2) my year was a riot. My entire attitude about my year and how I see 2016 going can be accurately illustrated in this GIF below. Last year, I wrote a post on resolutions that are possible to achieve. It included self-improvement goals such as loving yourself, trying new things and treating your body like a temple. These are objectives I believe we all should be achieving even after college. But right now, during your glorious college years, your new year’s resolutions should be focused on ways to enhance your USC experience. I came up with 10 solid ones I wish I had someone tell me take on when I was still a student at USC. :’( #RecentGradFOMO
Get a GPA that is higher than your previous semester - Feel like your Fall grades could’ve been better? Sometimes it’s difficult to get out of summer-mode, balance out a new school year, maintain motivation during football season, and keep the momentum after Thanksgiving break. To be honest, I got my worst grades only during Fall semester. While I pass all my classes, I’m usually left feeling disappointed with my final grades. Putting yourself up to the challenge of beating your Fall GPA is a great way to end the year on a strong note.
Talk to your parents at least once a week - I always tell myself I will write weekly emails to my grandma who lives in Hawaii and call my parents once a week to catch up on life. I find that my emails come once every other month at best and the reason why I talk to my parents is because I have a question for them or they’re wondering when the next time is that I am going to visit. By planning out specific times that you are free to talk to your parents such as during your commute to and from campus, Saturday morning, or during that gap between classes, your parents will appreciate you taking the initiative to reach out to them. Plus, it’s fun knowing what’s going on with your family! They’re there for you and relationships are bonded the strongest when the support is reciprocated.
Be more punctual - Everyone in LA is late. Never will you hear “there was no traffic today, I am running ahead of time by 20 minutes see you soon.” Always the other way around which tells us one thing: we all should be leaving earlier. Why isn’t anyone on time? If you think about it, making someone wait 20 minutes while you are running late is pretty rude. Would you make your potential employer wait? Would you dare be late to work on a regular basis? Friendships take work as well. Never being punctual is a sin of mine that I am not afraid to come to terms with. My grandparents are always 10 minutes early to things and there are low levels of stress coming from them. To kill that spare 10 minutes, they take their sweet time finding a nice parking spot.
Don’t miss class unless you actually have a legitimate reason to - No matter how much you hate it, that 8:30AM discussion is a commitment that should be seen through. I was the worst at having a solid attendance. Understandably, things come up such as bad health and other personal things, but please try to keep school at the top priority. College isn’t free and chances are you are going to have a bit of student loans when you leave USC. It’d be in your best interest to prepare yourself for the real world (and for tackling these loans because they aren’t gonna pay themselves off) so go to class, get on your professors good side and show presence not by just being there but by also contributing to class discussion. This was something I worked on the last 2 semesters of school and I saw signifiant changes in my grades and preparedness. Most importantly, I was more engaged with my studies.
Network - Go on LinkedIn and reach out to some alumni working in your field. Let them know you are interested in working in their industry and would like to ask them questions. If they’re open to it, offer to take them out for lunch or coffee–– always pay unless they offer. Your professors are literally within an arms reach every week. Talk to them after class and build a personal relationship with them or visit them during office hours. I loved talking to my professors during office hours because it was more personal and students weren’t lingering around. This was a great way to be candid with your professors and for them to be candid in return. If you have an internship, approach employees who you work with and show them your resume! Ask them if there is anything they’d recommend you change to strengthen it and also for advice on how you can obtain and work up to the position they currently have. They’ll more than likely be more than happy to help you out. Just put yourself out there the worst that can happen is that they don’t respond to you on LinkedIn or you’re told “no.” You don’t lose anything but can potentially gain so much when you set aside your pride.
Drink only on the weekends - I started doing this during Fall when I was interning at Pixalate, writing for Trojans 360 and taking on a full schedule of classes. It just didn’t make sense for me to be drinking on Tuesday and Wednesday nights anymore (RIP Taco Tuesdays and 9-0 Wednesdays). Perhaps I am growing up but in all honesty, you don’t need to be pumping this poison in your body 4 or 5 days out of the week. Alcohol is incredibly dangerous to our health and not only do we lose that entire night but we also lose part of or all of the following day. Now that I am moving on to working a full-time job, I know for a fact that drinking during my work week is absolutely out of the question. A glass of wine is fine, an entire bottle to yourself is crossing the line. You have the rest of your life to get drunk–– work hard during the week so your weekends are totally free. : )
Make friends with people who aren’t in your usual social crowd - This is hard for some because not everyone is all that approachable. When I am in an environment where people are relatively approachable looking but no one is speaking to each other, I state the obvious. By speaking up, I am destroying any chance people thought I was the unapproachable one and am essentially giving them the OK to speak to me. It’s great to step outside your comfort zone and hear new point of views so consider this. I learned during my Hawaii trip that a girl who I’ve never hung out with but share several mutual friends with me lives a half hour away. I randomly messaged her on Facebook and asked if she was down to meet up at a beach or something. We met up at a beach and she later on brought me to a different beach to hang with her friends. They were all super nice and I ended up having a great day with them. Even though I was feeling a bit awkward typing out that Facebook message, I don’t regret it at all because we got along well. In fact, my Grandma invited her over for dinner.
Do yourself a favor and stop looking for a relationship - It dawned on me that my mom was my age when she got married. That means she was in a serious relationship as she entered her twenties. I find this to be absolutely insane. I am also so curious about how our generation is going to approach marriage. The current median age for Americans getting married for the first time is 28.3 for men and 25.8 for women. If this is today’s norm, we have plenty of time to find life partners at a different stage of our lives. Now is the time to simply have fun and live for yourself. I’m still constantly gaining a better understanding of who I am and I’m turning 23 this year. College is a time to find yourself. No matter how cliché that statement sounds, just consider what constitutes a phrase to be cliché in the first place! ;)
Make yourself a top priority - This can also be interpreted as “be selfish.” You’re going to school for advance yourself. As a student, this is who you are right now. Everything else that follows should contribute to being a better version of yourself. This includes being a better friend, sibling, employee and daughter or son. However, that doesn’t mean you live for anyone other than yourself. Ask yourself what your needs are in life and evaluate whether you’re currently fulfilling these needs. For me, I know my top priority is happiness. I realized there were some things I wasn’t happy with so I made a huge effort to change that. I changed a lot of things in my life–– I got a cat because I knew caring for a warm body would bring me joy, I began to journal on a near-daily basis so I can clear my head, I made certain lifestyle changes that I knew would only improve my overall health and I stopped being friends with people who failed to make me feel good about myself. These small changes have proven instrumental to my overall happiness but the most important part of this was the empowerment I felt in doing this. No one brought me this happiness. Only myself.
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