By Rossani Garmendia

Let’s talk about it, if you ask any college senior, super senior, juniors, or returning dropouts most can agree that college is not for the weak, with the competitive nature of race to enroll with the best professors, on the search for the best internships, and the personal decisions that dictate the entire trajectory of student’s career after the graduate.

To some it may feel like survival of the fittest where only the strongest make it out alive.

As I made my way on our college campus, I thought to myself, “I can’t wait for the semester to be over.” As I was going through my email, I noticed an email from the Bursar office; Congratulations on your enrollment at the College of Staten Island for the Fall 2024 semester. A review of your record indicates that you have a balance of…which is due by July 17th, 2024. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or toss my phone as far as I could across the campus whether I wanted to stress about finals being only a month away or the upcoming Spanish paper that I still needed to complete, but now all I could think about was the bill that could determine all of it.

Students have to face papers, long days, bad diets, tedious jobs and all the while trying not to lose our heads. If you didn’t think that was stressful enough, just wait, there’s more! There are club meetings to attend, CSI clue credits to be collected, tests to study for and organization obligations. Now, the spring semester is coming to a close and here comes Fall semester’s tuition to restart this perpetual cycle. However, don’t fret just yet, my friend. There is a promise that comes with the hectic elements that make higher education worth the time and energy it takes to complete.

That one email or even slip of paper has the potential to tell a thousand different stories. As the semester is ends, reevaluate yet another six months of sweat and devotion and the fact that you are one step closer to everything you have been working for, so take a second to pat yourself on the back for all your hard work.