Every week the editorial board reflects on a current issue in Our View. The position taken does not reflect the opinions of everyone on the Hilltop Views staff. 

Dear freshmen,

It’s already been eight weeks of your first year of college. That’s 56 days of waking up early, going to bed late and forcing your body to stay alive  with excessive amounts of caffeine and processed food. Fifty six days of essays and tests and assignments. But as the editorial board of your student newspaper, we want to congratulate you on 56 days of slaying the game as a college student.

Only about 67 percent of students who graduate high school go to college, according to the Institute of Education Sciences. By even being here, you are winning. While your hard work thus far is applaudable, we must warn you for the challenges that loom in the horizon of your college career.

Sometime much sooner than you think, you will be required to select classes for your second semester of college. This means you have to decide whether you are going to stay with your major or move on to exploring something else. When that time comes around and you’re feeling inadequate because you can’t decide which course of study you should dedicate your life to, just remember that only 27 percent of college graduates actually work in a job relating to their major according to the 2010 US Bureau of the Census. So march up to your dean’s office and declare that philosophy major or pick up that theatre minor and enjoy it because your college major does not determine your life path. You are more than your major.

You most likely just finished your midterms, but in about  seven to eight weeks you will be faced with the most difficult week of your life — final exam week. This week will be unlike anything you’ve experienced. The stress that you will face will not be ordinary. 

You will be stressed about your classes, you will be stressed about your sleep schedule, you will be stressed about being stressed. But take heart in knowing that millions and millions of people have done this before you and have come out alive. Just think: some of the people that have successfully graduated from this institution are not as smart as you. If they can do it, you can do it.

After tackling your freshman year of college and succeeding (which you will), you will have to spend your summer thinking about how to finance a private school tuition and be able to afford two meals a day. 

This will be hard. If you currently don’t have a job, you will probably need to get on soon but trust that being able to make your own money will be a step toward adulthood. You can do it.

This is supposed to be the greatest four years of your life, but it probably won’t be, and that’s fine. 

Whatever major you decide to choose; whatever study abroad trip you decide to take and whatever you do, just remember that you can do it.