2008 Woodie Awards
Not Going Nuts
By Andrew Aschenbrenner
9/10/07 - Opinion
Welcome to the Colorado School of Mines, population about 4,000. Take a deep breath. There's nothing like CSM to whip your mind into shape, if your mind survives at all. When I first got here, someone told me that I could do three things: work, have fun, and sleep; choose two. Luckily, like most things, it's not quite that simple.
Being a college student demands responsibility, and a lot of it. That responsibility comes on a level similar to anything you might face in the future. In the case of CSM students, there's no telling what we might face in the future, but we have the opportunity to take on seemingly as much responsibility as we want, to the point of burnout.
Forget about paying bills and doing homework. I'm talking about leadership positions in clubs and projects, as well as countless other examples in which your performance affects other people working with and around you.
The question is, do you have the requisite skills to handle it all? Ability to problem-solve in real time, manage free time as if it's gold, handle business and social interactions with ease, and not go nuts by the end of the day.
Kudos to Mines for giving its students all the help they need, but the fact is that a good company will not tolerate employees who struggle to handle responsibility. I once heard life compared to a treadmill. You have to keep running, because if you fall off, no one is going to stop it to let you get back on. For your benefit, college is basic training for life. It will smack you around without much of a potential to get seriously hurt. My advice is to take advantage of the training.
Mines is not a conventional experience. I resist telling people that I go to Mines, not because I'm not proud of being a student here, because I am. It's just that either people don't know anything about a school called the Colorado School of Mines (mimes, anyone?) or their immediate response is something along the lines of; "Wow, you must be really smart!" Well, most of us are, but that's not the point.
Sometimes, despite our knowledge, we're all idiots. The ultimate focus is to rely on each other for mutual guidance and help, learn something along the way, and finish without the occurrence of some catastrophic failure.
Being a college student demands responsibility, and a lot of it. That responsibility comes on a level similar to anything you might face in the future. In the case of CSM students, there's no telling what we might face in the future, but we have the opportunity to take on seemingly as much responsibility as we want, to the point of burnout.
Forget about paying bills and doing homework. I'm talking about leadership positions in clubs and projects, as well as countless other examples in which your performance affects other people working with and around you.
The question is, do you have the requisite skills to handle it all? Ability to problem-solve in real time, manage free time as if it's gold, handle business and social interactions with ease, and not go nuts by the end of the day.
Kudos to Mines for giving its students all the help they need, but the fact is that a good company will not tolerate employees who struggle to handle responsibility. I once heard life compared to a treadmill. You have to keep running, because if you fall off, no one is going to stop it to let you get back on. For your benefit, college is basic training for life. It will smack you around without much of a potential to get seriously hurt. My advice is to take advantage of the training.
Mines is not a conventional experience. I resist telling people that I go to Mines, not because I'm not proud of being a student here, because I am. It's just that either people don't know anything about a school called the Colorado School of Mines (mimes, anyone?) or their immediate response is something along the lines of; "Wow, you must be really smart!" Well, most of us are, but that's not the point.
Sometimes, despite our knowledge, we're all idiots. The ultimate focus is to rely on each other for mutual guidance and help, learn something along the way, and finish without the occurrence of some catastrophic failure.
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