Residence Life with Summer Scholars

Finishing my junior year in high school put me one step closer to living on my own in college. College is a place that all responsibility is put on the student. Examples of these responsibilities are things such as making sure you eat, sleep, and do homework, while balancing a little bit of fun here and there. The Summer Scholars Program at UNO gave me the firsthand experience of these responsibilities while living on campus. We students had a busy week and had to balance our time between a variety of things; these include preparing for class the next morning, activities that the program offered throughout the day, and outside commitments - such as work.

This program showed us all what true campus life is like, and helped us to organize our priorities. Personally, I found that time management plays a big role in this, and realized I need to work on organizing my time better. It is always easier to slack off, not do assignments, and just have fun with friends, but sometimes the consequences become a rude awakening. We all had homework, optional activites, and other commitments during the residential week, just like real college life would. From these options, I learned that you have to discipline yourself to get the work done early so that you can play later. Another thing we all found out the hard way was that sometimes sleep is hard to come by in college, even if it is staying up late trying to finish assignments. By the end of the last day in the dorms, most of us were exhausted due to lack of sleep and the constant hustle and bustle of a day planned out by the program. On top of all this, some of the students had jobs as well as the daily assignments and activities, which would be even more difficult to manage time wisely. Balancing all of these things in one day makes it very challenging to stay focused on school.

By the end of the week in residence, some were happy to be able to go home to see family, and most were sad that they had to lave their new friends. We made it through the week and survived the challenges of time management. Being able to experience the college life beforehand was very beneficial to us all. If we had any, we made our mistakes early and were able to learn now, so that later, when we are actually in college, we know the rights from the wrongs.