17 hours

Mixade + Water + Homework.

For approximately seventeen hours a week, I am in a class. I might be exaggerating a lot if I said they were extremely difficult... Yes, they are college classes; and yes, they do require a different type of focus than normal high school classes generally demand, but for at least this first semester of my freshman year, I cannot lie and say it's been rough thus far.
On the other hand, these two words have been the hardest thing about college so far:

Time management. Yeah, yeah, laugh if you want to; I've been hearing it in association with college for basically my entire high school career. But, if I can give any advice concerning college, it would be to figure out the best way to manage your time. I can't tell you the number of times I have sat down to do homework in between classes, and found making powdered lemonade drinks much more fascinating; or getting to the end of a late-night movie, only to realize that it's 3 am, and I have a class in 4 and a half hours. I think that it's not mismanagement to do things like this, because those nights make your college experience great. This, like all things in life, is a matter of moderation. Clearly, I can't live on 4 and a half hours of sleep through college, and expect to do well in classes, or in anything else for that matter.

So as I publish this post, I plan on getting to sleep by midnight; I hope you do too.

-Dave