By Adeena Mignogna

Here’s a tale of two facts of high school life that had the most significant impact on my first and later years of college:

Fact #1

In high school, my parents woke me up for school each day.

I’ve always been a heavy sleeper and never was a morning person. My first semester at college, I signed up for a very interesting class that was held twice a week beginning at 8:30 a.m. I just figured I’d be able to make it. High school started daily at 8 a.m. and I had never been late to homeroom. It turned out to be not so easy. Without another human who cared enough about me and my schooling to literally rip the covers off me in the morning, I kept hitting the snooze button and told myself I’d get the notes and make it up next time. After all, it wasn’t like I would get grounded or suspended for missing class.

Well, that wasn’t good enough and as it turned out, the exams for this course came straight from the lecture notes. I failed the class. (Here, it would be appropriate to point out that I was a classic honors and AP student who cared a lot about my studies. I didn’t react well to failing a class.)

Luckily, that was enough for me to learn my lesson. I became pretty religious about always getting to class on time. And you know what? Even in some of my larger classes, the professors noticed. Sitting up front and paying attention, even in a class of 200 is a good thing, no matter what anyone else does. It became very beneficial, especially in my later years when classes were all centered around my major. Since I had built up a reputation in my department for being reliable, if I had to miss a class, it was never counted against me.

The Moral: Know your personal limitations. Your first year of college is a BIG change. Don’t try to push yourself to do things outside your comfort zone – yet. Remember that resources you had to draw upon in high school have a way of disappearing once you’re away from home. And don’t miss classes just because no one will bug you about it!

Fact #2:

A personal finance class wasn’t a requirement for graduation at my high school.

Combine that with the small detail that while in high school, I wasn’t bombarded with tons of credit card offers in the mail and on campus. Like so many other college students, I was able to convince myself that I needed one “for emergencies”. It’s amazing how almost anything gets classified as an emergency after that. My step-sister’s wedding was coming up and I wanted to get her something more than I could really afford. Then I wanted to go out to eat with my friends. I could buy more books, clothes and posters for my dorm room than I needed, too. And it was very easy to make the minimum payments (which started of at $10 a month).

Pretty soon, I had a balance of several thousand dollars. I wasn’t terribly stressed about it at first. Making the minimum payments (around $50-75 a month) was still within my ability and I was able to trick myself into believing that when I graduated, it would be easy to pay it off in just a couple months. It’s easy to not have a realistic grasp on one’s taxes and expenses.

It wasn’t until my last semester of college, as I was looking for a job, that I sat down with my dad and finally did the math regarding the interest rates on my credit cards and realized how bad it really was. That’s when the real stress set in. The debt build-up had been so easy to ignore up till then. The result was that when I graduated, I had no savings even though I worked all through college, I had wasted a lot of money, and it prevented me from doing other things I wanted to do once I was out of school, like travel. Looking back, this is one of the only things I would have changed – just say no to the credit cards!

The Moral: Don’t be tempted by credit card offers.

The most important thing I can communicate to collegebound students is this: In high school, most of the mistakes you make aren’t permanent. Your parents usually are able and willing help out, and most mistakes simply don’t propagate into adulthood. Once you cross into the next stage of your life, however, the things you do can have lasting affects on your remaining college years and later.

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