Dear Random Freshman

Dear Random Freshman:

I know you're excited to be in high school. By now I would hope you have been comfortably assimilated, you have your schedule memorized, and you have made friends in all your classes to keep you company through all your academic endeavors. Or whatever.

I consider myself lucky because I feel like I did my freshman year right. Others that I know, however, do not feel the same way at all. In fact, I've heard my peers bemoaning their freshman year laziness. So here is my advice to you, newcomers.

1. The people you have in your classes now are most likely the people who will be in your classes for all four years, so make friends. There's almost nothing better than walking into your first class on the first day of a new year and seeing familiar and even friendly faces. Of course, you'll have plenty of opportunities to make new friends throughout your career, but get started early. You'll see.

2. Having said that, let me pull you back to reality: don't blow off your classes. There are seniors I know who are still recovering from a lackluster freshman year. You want to start off on a good foot. The work may be harder than you're used to, the deadlines sooner, the teachers more demanding, but it honestly is all in your best interest. The key to keeping up is balance: find a middle ground between studying all the time and socializing all the time. If you can do that, you'll build a foundation for a strong high school career that will carry you all the way to your senior year.

3. Speaking of your senior year...I know it seems like you have all the time in the world to worry about college, but in reality, you don't. Start planning now. Think about what interests you, look for colleges that will cater to these interests, look at what kind of things they require. The earlier you know where you want to go, the easier it will make everything, I promise. And as a sidenote, start your testing - ACTs and SATs - in your junior year. I'm cutting it so close with test scores right now, and I wish I had gotten it all out of the way last year.

Your end goal is to have as stress-free a senior year as possible, because it is the year that you're supposed to have fun and enjoy. But your freshman, sophomore, and junior years need to be spent making sure you CAN enjoy that last sprint to freedom and independence. You don't want to get this far and be missing credits, worrying about test scores, or still unsure about where you want to apply and what you want to do.

And that is my advice to you.