Life doesn’t wait as it did before in the days of undergrad recklessness and illusion. Juggling real life and real responsibility while plunging into debt can be testing. You may not have a full time job (although most students do work in some capacity to earn extra spending money, or merely to slightly ameliorate their growing debt burden) but you will occasionally look at your friends from college with envy, dreaming of the simplicity that must rule their lives while working that 9-5.

I found myself feeling a touch of the green-eyed monster this past week, while simultaneously studying for midterm exams and trying to tie together all the loose ends of the move my girlfriend and I have been planning for well over a month now. We’re moving to Wrigleyville in downtown Chicago, which has proved exhausting between finding the place, organizing the move, finding renters for our current places, and figuring out the complex Chicago parking laws. Yes, the commute to and from school will be a bit longer for us, but the allure of city living finally won us over. Besides, the commute time can be decimated with a little planning and time management.

Time management is paramount for any student at National University. Mismanagement can bog even the brightest person down; for life itself doesn’t slow down or take time off to make room for an exam schedule. Proper planning is critical. The days may, at times, seem long but the weeks flash by; so herding all the ducks into a row prior to the trimester beginning is important to keep up with the hectic pace. As tiring is it all is, I often feel the flush of excitement at the beginning of each new trimester and life-event. Each new term is a mini-adventure in itself.