If college is supposed to get students ready for real life, more students need to take it seriously. How they deal with education might indicate how they are likely to deal with life.

For students, this is “put up or shut up” time. Final projects and exams are due or due very soon. Right after that is summer jobs or summer school for many, graduation or transfer to a university for others. For some, interviews and employment in the real world is on their immediate horizon.

A few students actually took the instructors’ suggestions and are all caught up at this point. For those, exam week is not a traumatic event. It is the logical end event to the semester no more difficult than any other due date.

That is not the case for many students. For them, exam week is terrible and frightening. For them it’s not just exam week. It’s catch up on assignments, and projects and of course, cram like crazy week. For some it is even pray for me week.

These students are often the students who show up to enough classes to stay enrolled and are late on the days they do attend. When they are in class they’re sneaking in a text message or reading Facebook messages instead of taking notes. These same students then ask for your notes to copy.

These students know just how many points they need to pass. Do or die suddenly becomes their motto. They burn themselves up trying desperately to survive another semester so they can return next semester and just get by again.

If college is supposed to prepare them for adult life, what kind of adult are they preparing to be? What type of employee will they become? Will they provide quality service above and beyond expectations or just enough to not get fired?

Will these become adults who complain about not getting any breaks as they reach for another handout?

If your one of those students, try doing it right from the beginning next semester. Don’t settle for the minimum. See what you can do rather than what you can get away with.

College is supposed to train you for life. Get serious. Be a good student if you hope to be a good employee some day. Otherwise you might graduate without learning a most important lesson… responsibility.