Junior year is not the end – don’t quit everything yet

I remember my middle school principal reading a quote as part of the morning announcements: “The third quarter of the race is always the hardest.” This quote stuck in my mind because I didn’t like it – it was so general, and how would somebody even collect data to come to that conclusion? Well, now that I’m in my junior year, I think I’m finally starting to agree with that little saying. I’m asking myself, “What am I supposed to do junior year?” because it just doesn’t feel as special as any of the other grades.

I also want to state that I know a lot of people probably aren’t having the same experiences. I think that junior year has the least going for it. I’m writing my opinion to encourage people to not be like me; try to treat every year like freshman year and keep the excitement. I also don’t know the co-op life, and I can’t imagine the weirdness of two senior years (err, two junior years?).

I miss freshman year. I used to live by the Student Life Newsletter, attending every event I could. Then, I got involved with so many clubs. I kept busy and I stayed up late doing homework with friends.

Then sophomore year was the time to let go of some time-suckers to choose new opportunities. I quit a few organizations, gained major leadership positions, and tried two new jobs.

Now I decided junior year would be the time to choose what I actually wanted to keep with. I made the awful decision of quitting everything. This left me with two major organizations, one I’m the president of and the other I actually took a leave of absence for this semester. Basically, this has left me I feeling like there’s nothing left for me to look forward to. All of the senior year fun, exciting job hunting, senior project and “senioritis” seem so far away. Overall, junior year has me feeling like I’ve stagnated, and it’s the worst feeling.

Maybe I’m just in the wrong mindset since I quit everything. It’s like one of those inertia applications, “A body in motion tends to stay in motion, a body at rest tends to stay at rest.” I mean, junior year isn’t absolutely terrible.

I suppose I could technically run for executive board positions again, and there are opportunities like the new sorority forming on campus, Orientation Leader Coordinator, and running a festival on campus. Also, it’s not too late to join some clubs or rejoin ones I left, right?