Story by Kristin Gallagher (Business Manager)

It is nearly mid-semester and many of us have realized that perhaps it is time to break the seals on our books.

Professors are slowly hinting at upcoming exams, and we are forced to assume they are not kidding. It’s about to get real.

The beginning of fall semester is always exciting- new year, new faces, and of course, new parties.

Everyone knows the first week of school is syllabus week, so it seems perfectly acceptable to mingle a bit on the weeknights. What can it hurt, right?

Then week two rolls along, and this is when the established parties occur; the pre-planned ones with Facebook event pages and more than 800 people attending. So we go. What can it hurt, right?

And it goes on. And we go out. Here we are, now in the fifth week of the semester, and we are hurting. Our GPA’s are as low as our bank accounts, and we say cheap drinks are to blame.

The truth is, we must blame ourselves. Priorities are easy to mix up when comparing the appeal of homework to that of a night out, but one would hope eventually we get them sorted out. Now is that time.

Although it seems like more of a burden than benefit right now, getting through college with decent grades will benefit our futures.

In fact, US News estimates that college graduates make about $200,000 more a year than those who stopped education after high school, and the reality is that we need to graduate and get a good paying job to make back all the money we blow in college.

So let’s skip a Thirsty Thursday or two, take the plastic off those books, pull up a chair and put that beer pong table to good use. What can it hurt, right?