When you're forced to empty out your bank account to order novels and poetry and books filled with scholars debating whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote anything, be happy with your budget diet of ramen noodles and taco bell for the rest of the month. You will never again have an excuse to empty your bank account on books.
When you think that maybe you've chosen the wrong major because all the boys in your class wear pants tighter than yours and all the girls in your class have perfected the air of not caring and have twitter bios quoting an obscure author you've never heard of before this semester, don't. They're pretending too. And if you stop pretending, you'll learn some really beautiful things.
When you're tempted to give in and read the spark-notes version of everything so that you can sleep and actually have a life on the weekends, don't do it. One day you will think of Coleridge and Byron and Kerouac as your best friends that you've never met, and any time with them you cheated yourself out of will be time you regret.
Pay close attention to the red marks on your papers. Don't be too offended that you actually did not write the greatest paper in the world and you actually are not the voice of your generation like you maybe thought. Because after this, you will have to pay hundreds of dollars to get someone to edit your writing with that much care and precision.
When you're on your fifth cup of coffee, trying to stay awake so you can finish reading only to wake up a few hours later to go discuss it, enjoy it. Because one day you will stay up late reading only to have to wake up a few hours later and go to work, where no one cares to discuss what you read.
Try not to complain too much about how you've singlehandedly paid the light bill at Starbucks. I promise, you will look back on that late-night-turned-early-morning studying and debating with classmates and realize it was some of the most meaningful conversation you've ever had.
Enjoy the late nights, the burning eyes, the writers block, the thees and thous, the plays and poems and stories.
Because one day, on a Tuesday, you will be getting ready to start your job that has nothing to do with writing or reading great authors, and you won't be able to think of anything that sounds better than spending the day reading books you don't understand. And you will wonder...how has it been two entire years since you sat in a classroom, overwhelmed and undereducated and desperately trying to keep up?
Enjoy the best of times and the worst of times, because secretly, they are all the best of times.
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