College can be tricky, we are put into this new environment with thousands of other students we don’t know and are required to pass classes, all the while being social and trying to form healthy relationships on top of maintaining previous relationships from high school.

This can all be extremely overwhelming and if we don’t find a healthy balance between it all then we could easily break down and lose motivation to do anything. I myself am a victim to this; my first semester of college I developed a routine of going to class, eating at the dining hall by myself and going back to my dorm room to watch YouTube and hanging out with friends once or twice during the week.

The issue I ran into was the fact that I did not indulge myself in a common friend group from class to class. I showed up by myself and left by myself, I was torn between wanting to communicate with my friends from high school every day or branching out and meeting new people.

It took months for me to realize what this was doing to my personal life. I didn’t have the same character and energy I use to when having regular conversations with anyone because I was out of routine.

By routine I mean “you practice what you perform” and if all you are practicing is watching YouTube every day for hours and rarely stopping to talk with a friend then you’re going to perform poorly with communication skills due to the lack of them in your routine.

How I went about fixing this lack of communication skill was first realizing “I had a problem.” From there I began to text more people I knew of here at K-State to talk and started hanging out more with my acapella group Cadence before and after rehearsals.

Then I began applying those same communication skills with my friends back at home and ultimately found a healthy balance between the two after a few weeks of constant communication.

The ultimate challenge is finding that routine that works for you and pushes you out of your comfort zone but also doesn’t work you to the extent the point of being burnt out. If you create that healthy balance and consistent routine your college experience will be one you won’t regret.