Junior year. The ultimate Parker kid fear. For the entirety of your time as an underclassman at Parker, your junior year is referenced as if it were one of Dante’s circles of hell. I’ll admit, it’s bad sometimes. I don’t particularly enjoy not being able to procrastinate and watch “Parks and Rec” for hours on end, and finals weren’t very fun, but really, Parker? It’s not nearly as horrible as everyone makes it seem.

Yes, the beginning of the college process is stressful, and taking standardized tests can be a struggle, but we’re going to have to take standardized tests again in our lives, so better to get used to it now. We need to stop catastrophizing junior year because not only is it not nearly as bad as people make it seem, but its challenges are ultimately preparing us for life.

The way I see it, we can either take our lumps now or later. I’ve heard that every day is junior year in college, and I don’t want to be that girl freshman year that has to go home. As I’ve begun to look at schools, I keep hearing about a “balance” between your academic and your social life. This is a great idea for colleges to preach, but a really difficult one to grasp as a student. Unfortunately, you can’t just announce, “My life is hereby officially balanced.” It doesn’t work that way. It takes a lot more planning and effort to live an appropriately balanced life. Think of junior year as practice for the actual game. We need to be good if we’re going to succeed.

We need to gain a work ethic eventually. Why shouldn’t it be now? And it’s really not that horrible. I sleep. Occasionally. I’m kidding, I probably get just a little less sleep than I did my sophomore year.

You may not know this, but we have it relatively easy. Many Parker students have never had to lose sleep and not have fun due to the amount of work they have for an extended period of time. In real life, you have to do this all the time. That’s why junior year comes as such a rude awakening for many Parker students.

I came from Anshe Emet middle school where there was plenty of homework, way too much sometimes for certain fourth graders (i.e. me).  It was the worst, but I did learn how to manage my time and what it was like to bust my butt. Now I’m not saying that we should pile on homework for little children all over the country, but I did learn something from the experience, something that we all need to learn. I needed a refresher, and junior year has been a perfect reminder. We need a sound work ethic to survive out in the world, and in college. We have to learn how to work hard eventually, and we’re lucky that Parker teaches us that now.

Junior year is the hill that the instructor makes you do in Soul Cycle. You have to do it, and it really sucks, but it’s going to make you better in the long run. And it’s never as bad as it was made out to be in your head.

And you know what? Sometimes you’ll have to prioritize certain assignments over others. There’s an amount of work you just can’t do. Your teachers understand this. Now I wouldn’t recommend skipping half of your assignments because “it’s just too much,” but occasionally, the better that you are going to be in all your classes because you are not a total zombie more than makes up for the points you are going to lose on a late assignment.

As long as you plan your time well, you’re fine. Do fun stuff like make to do lists! And maybe write out a schedule! I recommend doing this on a Friday or Saturday night. Actually, I plan my time horribly. Even then, you’re fine.

If you work hard and do good work, you will survive with all your limbs. Stay calm. You’re doing great. And think about how in college when everyone is freaking out about how much work they have, you’ll be the impossibly chill one! Second semester just started, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but so far, junior year has been good for me. Knock on wood.