I've been teaching in the Ateneo on and off (mostly on) since 1988--yes, I'm THAT old. With my own daughter about to don the Ateneo blue, my mind races through over two decades of experience with college students. What can I tell her, I ask myself, to help her survive? Can I draw her a map? Can I steer her clear of the all the potholes? Can I give her a push up the inclines and catch her when she falls? Yes, I know: Even if I could (and I *can't*), I shouldn't. All I can do is reiterate some of the advice we usually give to all our freshmen.
College is hard. You are among the very brightest in the country. A very large percentage of the kids we accept were honor students in high school. If you're in a science course (and you are), chances are you're sitting next to a valedictorian (if you aren't one yourself). Your teachers know this, and we teach to that level. The pace of the courses tends to be aggressive. Expect a lot of content that takes time and energy to digest.
Go easy on the extracurriculars. Join an org or two, yes, but maybe not 5. Because, who are we kidding, you won't be active in all of them. They're just colorful add-ons to your resume.
You will think that you have a lot of time, but really you don't. You will need the time to write your English term papers, study for the next math long test, and finish your natsci experiement, all of which happen to to be due on the same day.
Students tend to cram. This is something I strongly, strongly discourage. Spread the work over time. It accumulates as the sem passes. Don't wait until the deadlines are upon you. Spare yourself the insanity. My theory is that people cram because they want an excuse in case they get a terrible grade at the end, "Oh, I just crammed that paper" or "Oh, I really didn't have enough time." They want an excuse because they're afraid that if they actually did do their best, they'd find that it still isn't enough. Don't get into the habit, or if you already have it, break it.
I offer an alternative approach: Decide how much effort you want to put in something, and then let it ride. If you don't honestly care about being on the Dean's List, then just do enough to pass. If, on the other hand, you want to impress the crap out of your creative writing teacher, then do as Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith says and open up a vein and bleed--I mean that in a metaphorical sense, of course. I have one student now who embodies this approach completely. He's smart enough to get whatever grades he wants and is self-aware enough to know how much effort he has to put in to get them. However, he has a life (yes, kids have that now), so he either dials up or dials down his academic efforts, depending on what he wants to achieve. At first blush, that sounds very anti-Magis, I know. My point, though, is that you have to decide what sort of life you want, and go for it.
That said, you should always, always, be aware of your obligations. We work very hard to send you to the Ateneo. (To those on scholarship, your benefactors chose you from many other applicants, some of whom would probably donate a kidney to have what you've been given.) As deserving as you are, deserving you must continue to be. Don't piss the opportunity away.
Live with the future in mind. If you decide to experiement with sex, drugs, or alcohol--worse yet, if post pictures of these experiments on Facebook--ask your spin doctors to start preparing your future press statements. The Internet is forever and all of these things will come back to bite you. Does that mean you should live cowering in fear? No. It means you be willing to accept the consequences of however you choose to live.
Finally, be kind to yourself. In the novel Admission, Jean Hanff Korelitz speaks about how our excellent, excellent students' greatest fear was discovering they were the average man:
Inside every one of her fellow students...was a person who didn't live up to his or her own expectations, a person too fat, too slow, whose hair wouldn't hold a curl, who had no gift for languages, who lacked the gene for math. They were convinced that they were not all they'd been cracked up to be: the track star, classicist, valedictorian, perennial leading lady, campus fixer, or teacher's favorite. The driven ones she'd known in college feared they weren't driven enough, and the slackers were sure they'd find out how deficient they are if they ever did apply themselves... She knew that they were soft-centered, emotional beings wrapped in a terrified carapace, that even though they might appear rational and collected on paper, so focused that you wanted to marvel at their promise and maturity, they were lurching, turbulent muddles of conflict in their three-dimensional lives...They feared they were ordinary kids,..., not the brilliant sparks they had unexpectedly persuaded grownups they were. Ordinary and thoroughly average. Ordinary and undeserving.
You aren't ordinary. (None of you are.) You (all of you) have the potential to do great things. That doesn't mean you will be the best (or that you *have* to be the best). That doesn't mean you'll never fail. Just don't let yourself be racked with self-doubt, and don't equate your grades with your self-worth. You can do this.
