By Marcia Y. Cantarella, Author, I CAN Finish College: The Overcome Any Obstacle and Get Your Degree Guide.
Fun
Especially if you go away to college it is like all the blocks to fun are removed. No more parents watching and nagging about when you get home, no one checking how many beers you had or if you used a condom. Whoo whoo—college is a party! That is why there are those lists of the best party schools. And if your school is not on the list then you will fix that!
Truth is fun is fun. It is a good thing. We all need some of it in our lives. A good belly laugh or pick-up basketball game can even extend your life and keep you healthy. Relationships are supposed to be fun (not that they always are) and it is healthy to have strong social ties and networks for both professional and personal gratification. So hanging out is fun and good for you. I am all for fun. Do it myself a lot. But there is this other word—BALANCE. That is key when you think of fun. You cannot succeed in college and have all fun all the time. You need to work some, sleep some, eat some, and play—some. Balance it all out.
The worst case scenarios for college students are the ones that began as fun and ended badly. The drunken car accident that takes a life is not fun anymore. The fight that escalates to someone getting really hurt and hospitalized is not fun. Date rape is not fun. Throwing up is not fun. Being expelled is not fun. Falling off the campus monument and breaking a leg is not fun. Failing your courses because you were too hung over to get to class or do the work is not fun. Failing classes because you were in your room gaming is not fun. Explaining to your family that scraped and saved to send you to college why you are coming home because you were too busy having fun is not fun. Losing your financial aid because you failed classes having fun is not fun.
There is something in the hormonal make-up of those under 30 that, it is suggested, lead to feelings of invulnerability. The bad stuff happens to other people, but won’t happen to you. There is a reason young folks go to war. That invulnerability allows them to take risks that those of us older and wiser would call nuts. But bad stuff does happen. There are whole websites devoted to that bad stuff like hazing deaths and drunk driving outcomes and ugliness resulting from substance abuse. Things that start as fun when taken to extremes are not fun in the end.
So there is another word you need to learn in college and it is NO. That is no, thanks, no more beer. Or no thanks I can’t go out tonight. Or no that is nuts and I am not doing it. Or no that is wrong and I am not doing it. Or no this is not fun anymore. This is not to suggest that you have No fun. But that you have sane fun, balanced fun. Fun that won’t make you fail.
( For more on this topic in detail see I CAN Finish College chapters 6, 8 and 9. www.icanfinishcollege.com)
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