Well, congrats. It’s halfway through the semester, and you haven’t dropped out. Good for you. Now you’ve reached a tipping point, a fork in the road. You’ve had a midterm; you’ve got an idea of the course load. You think you know which classes can be skipped. Now is your chance to decide if you have an easy second half, or if you’ve got some climbing ahead.

If you fall into the leisure class, good for you. You’ve used your natural intelligence and abilities to not fail any classes. Bully for you. Now you get to just hover and hope you don’t ruin your medium-to-hard work. “Now Grant,” I can hear you asking, “wouldn’t it be better if I just gave 100 percent effort 100 percent of the time?” Well, yeah. Obviously. You should definitely do that. Thing is, we live in the real world, and in the real world, there are people who like to use their wiggle room.

If you fall into the failing category, don’t panic. It’s not that you shouldn’t be panicking, it just won’t help all that much. We’ve all been there. There are days I say to myself, “Dang, I feel like a real engineer,” and days where I go, “You know, I hear plumbers are making good money.” Seeing as my next best plans are homelessness or writing professionally (in that order), I would like engineering to pan out. So far, it’s going pretty well. If you’re having a manic day, just breathe, have a snack and remember you can always be homeless.

So where do you fall? Is life easy until finals? Do you need a 98 percent on the final to pass? It doesn’t really matter as long as you recognize where you are. It’s never too late to turn things around if things are bad. If things are good, maybe you just stress a little less. It’s college; you’ll find plenty to get stressed about without looking. Try picking up a hobby or learning a new instrument. Use this as an opportunity to better yourself. Or just drink until you fall behind again. That seems to be a classic.