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LCCC dental health students celebrate Roentgen Day

Local students make University of Scranton dean’s list

<p>My last semester is finally in full swing, and I&#8217;ve noticed something very peculiar about my attitude.</p><p>I&#8217;m inordinately relaxed.</p><p>I&#8217;m not talking &#8220;senioritis&#8221; relaxed. I&#8217;m not talking &#8220;it&#8217;s-my-freshman-year-and-I-kind-of-just-want-to-hang-out-with-my-friends-and-not-do-any-work&#8221; relaxed.</p><p>I&#8217;m getting my work done. I&#8217;m doing all of the readings I&#8217;m supposed to. But nothing is shadowed by the baseline anxiety I&#8217;m used to.</p><p>I attribute this to a few things.</p><p>First, it&#8217;s almost over. The light is at the end of the tunnel. I might as well relax and enjoy myself. I would rather look at this final push to bring my GPA as high as possible as a fun challenge than an absolute necessity that I should lose sleep over.</p><p>Second, I&#8217;m a lot more organized than I have been in the past. Instead of cramming all of my readings, assignments and papers into the front of my notebooks, I actually bought folders. This was life-changing, albeit overdue. I&#8217;m not sure how I made it this long without folders.</p><p>Third, I genuinely am excited about all of my classes &#8212; every one of them. It makes sense that the more advanced classes are the most stimulating, challenging and interesting. I would recommend to anyone struggling to enjoy intro-level and gen-ed classes to stick it out for the more in-depth courses.</p><p>And lastly, nothing makes a semester fly by like thinking too far in the future and stressing, I have found. I know what you&#8217;re thinking: &#8220;Toni, are you crazy? Don&#8217;t you want your last semester to fly by?&#8221;</p><p>The answer is &#8220;no.&#8221;</p><p>I&#8217;m very focused on experiencing my last semester. That means experiencing classes to the fullest potential by giving them all of my attention when warranted, doing thorough work, and also doing all of the other things that college students do.</p><p>People talk a lot about &#8220;getting the college experience,&#8221; but that doesn&#8217;t necessarily happen by spending all hours of the night in the library.</p><p>I think I mentioned in an earlier column that I don&#8217;t like parties at all. I still don&#8217;t. But there&#8217;s something innately &#8220;college&#8221; about bar-hopping and the like, and because I am now a legal adult who likes spending time with friends, I intend to give it a try. And there isn&#8217;t anything wrong with that.</p><p>I&#8217;m excited to graduate, but I don&#8217;t want that to stop me from living in the present.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Toni Pennello</p><p>tpennello@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Toni Pennello is a Wilkes University senior who works in the Times Leader newsroom.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

College Life: Focus on experience yields relaxing final semester