On a college campus there is an insanely wide range of people doing a wide range of things. Comparatively to others some students look lost. Coming to campus as a freshman some students are stunned by the direction and achievements by their peers and can easily fall into a sense of inadequacy. I will share my advice on taking advantage of your time in college and power yourself into a sense of preparedness for the working world. 

When I first got onto college campus as a freshman I was in a living learning community for entrepreneurship. Two of my suitemates had already started a business together. Others had similar projects in the works. I accidentally hit the button because it sounded cool and didn’t know I was applying to join. Surrounded by all these highly motivated students with experience under their belts made me feel like I had more to do. I began working with the entrepreneurship resources on campus while designing things in my engineering classes. I also participated in startup competitions. 

When I got to Emerson this phenomenon was much worse. Many students working in media driven fields and have impressive creative engines. I was coming in as a journalism major having not done any journalistic work since middle school newspaper. My peers were already compiling impressive resumes and I was just breaking the ice. I took this opportunity to get involved in school organizations but I felt like that was not enough. Like I had in the past I began looking at things I could do beyond my coursework and organizations. I applied for some internships to build some more of my resume and portfolio. This was a good start for but I still felt the need to do more. 

As I had in the past I looked to work on my own individual projects, by myself and with friends. Fortunately, as I had found in the past there were ample resources for me to do so within the school. A friend and I began using the school audio booths to start a podcast. My school gives access to all adobe applications as well as a web development subscription. I used this chance to start my own website, a fashion blog. 

Throughout these experiences I learned that taking control of your time in college is important. You have much more free time than in high school and there is much less structure. It is easy to slip in to a habit of doing the minimum but taking responsibility for your own use of time is perfect to allow students to make the most of their time and resources at school.

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