As I sit in my room with my hands over the keyboard, I have a weird emotion in my heart. To my right is a small shelf where I keep my journals — I write one page every night and have done so for the past two and a half years. By now, I’ve gone through several notebooks, and God knows how many pens. Every page contains a day from my life and all the moments I spent working toward a goal.

Reflecting on these pages makes me think about how far I have come to be here. I can imagine only one word fitting the emotions I felt while striving to succeed in college: marathon.

Last year, I wrote a column for the 2024 Orientation Issue based on my experiences as a freshman. At that moment, my life was about seeking everything new and novel to me — I was trying to adapt to living in a new country, and the excitement of doing something new every day motivated me.

A year later, as a sophomore, my perspective shifted. While my first year showed me the joy of exploration, the second year taught me the virtue of endurance. Now, I was not only a student, but a club president, a regular columnist, a researcher and an academic writer. Because I very quickly became many things at the same time, I needed a way to orient myself and not lose track of my life.

Looking back, I became much better at time management than I was in my first year. It became routine for me to write two columns for Pipe Dream, run the History Club, do my homework, plan slides for conference presentations, work on my research project and work as a sound engineer for the radio station. And interestingly, while this looks like too much when listed out, I still had so much more free time to use for my own pleasure during my sophomore year. I taught myself to not rush, but to be methodical and take care of tasks one at a time.

I remember how often I wrote in my journals that my life was like a marathon. I thought it’d be a sprint — I’d make a quick run, succeed in what I was doing and coast through classes without worrying about making a consistent effort.

I was naive — in fact, dangerously so. I count myself successful for the many works I completed and responsibilities I carried on top of my classes, but I could not function as a human being without teaching myself to be consistent. I didn’t “coast” through my sophomore year — I worked like a ticking clock to make good use of my time.

I want to emphasize this clock analogy, because it is a very convenient metaphor for college. A clock can be set and reset to match the time, but it always keeps ticking. Your progress and success must have the same spirit to it as well. You can decide who you want to be and what you want to do, and change your mind when your ideas change.

But when you wake up every morning, you should do so with the will to be active that day, so when you go to sleep, you can do so with the satisfaction of a day well spent.

Therefore, I’m building this year’s advice for freshmen on the foundation of what I shared last year. The essence of life — not just college, but for everything beyond it too — is about having the will and the dedication to work consistently, not sporadically. Sticking to a momentum prevents you from the extremes of apathy and burnout. Whereas too much work is unhealthy and inaction breeds melancholy, a determined attitude makes your life more meaningful and satisfying to live.

In college, you will have a unique time to explore and experience new things and learn from the people around you. After a while, these experiences will be the foundations for the next step, which is dedicating yourself to a goal for your future.

You might think these ideals are far too big, far too complicated to hold. Or you might think you’ll have plenty of time in the future to “figure everything out.” However, the true advantage comes from acting early and working consistently, not from speeding toward a goal in a rush. Planning your steps ahead, preparing for tasks one step at a time and having strong discipline are essential for success.

Take your time to think about who you want to become, do not shy away from challenging yourself and give yourself some rest when you earn it. But crucially, you should never lose your pace and stay focused on your ambitions. Use your time wisely, and dedicate yourself to your own great marathon.

Deniz Gulay is a junior double-majoring in history and Russian.

Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.