When preparing yourself to live on campus or commute to campus at a four-year university, you’ve already set plans in your mind to work hard, study extensively and go to sleep early (early being 9 p.m. sharp).

While the aforementioned strategy might be the most effective way to keep your GPA above a 3.0, you might have had trouble making time to have fun; and understanding what having fun even means. This is where Ed comes in. Ed, with his unconditional, bighearted personality, lovable absentmindedness and comical spontaneity, has six steps of advice for you and your fellow scholars to help balance out having fun, maintaining your job, keeping up with your schoolwork and engaging in campus activities during your college experience.

1. Be the life of the party.

Although it wouldn’t hurt to step out of your comfort zone to interact with others, I don’t necessarily mean party in a literal sense. When trying to connecting with people, remember, you're not subject to only going to a club, a bar, or house party congested with people you might not know to enjoy yourself.If you have some free time, you can contact some of your closest friends to get together to play video games, games such as Cards Against Humanity, Scrabble, Candy Land, Monopoly, or Clue, watch some DVDs, or make a few deadpan, anecdotal jokes with one another to share some laughs.

2. Be a child.

Life your live as if you were a child again. A lot of children are inquisitive, ambitious and enthusiastically curious. Once you choose to see life through your younger self’s eyes, you will not feel like your past experiences and beliefs are restricting you from joyously venturing off into the unexplored.

3. Find humor in every circumstance.

Laughing at a stand-up joke from your favorite comedian is one thing. Laughing at your own joke, or let alone, at yourself, is another. Sometimes, you need to be able to laugh at the bad experiences that happen to you in life as much as the good, if not more. Hypothetically speaking, say you’re commuting to the college five days a week. You’re taking level-four college courses that add up to 18+ credits during your first semester. Also, you’re managing a job at the supermarket in your hometown. During your second week of the semester, in two of your classes, your professors have told you have a exams in the next two days. Stress piles up on you. Your adrenaline rushes. You already feel defeated before you’ve thought out how you’re going to prioritize things.

4. Weigh out your responsibilities.

You might feel that your grades come first, but you need income to support yourself. For the past two days, you cram information for hours until 2 a.m.. One morning, you wake up and notice you’re two hours past your work shift. Your boss writes you up for failure to show up to work. The next day, you do make it to work, and your shift is from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. When you get off work, you’re too fatigued to continue cramming for your two exams the next morning.

5. Keep your cool.

The next morning you wake up, you rush to put your clothes on, cram the study notes you have and you rush to school to make it in time for your exam. Within the next two days, you receive an email from both of your professors explaining that you did poorly on your exams. You feel saddened. You clench your fist in frustration, feeling a great deal of regret, thinking on how you could’ve managed your time better.

6. Look at the bright side.

You start lashing insults at yourself and meanly putting yourself down. You contemplatively recap the fact that you failed on both your exams; however, you reassess the situation and remember that you can’t change what’s already happened. You begin giggling at yourself. You giggle because it keeps you from entering a state of self-deprecation. You also laugh because it helps you sustain a brighter, optimistic outlook of your unfortunate circumstances.