The true college experience includes staples like terrible dining hall food, over-priced vending machines, and an empty wallet. All this comes with the “BYOB” – Be Your Own Boss. The badge is super shiny and comes with many responsibilities and setbacks. Some of these have been listed above while others need experience to empathize with. Now that I have donned the badge, I have had to deal with quite a bit on my own. However, there are many pros to this new title. I get to choose when I do homework, what I eat for dinner, if I want to study, and many other choices that weren’t available yet. If I want to goof off all weekend and go to Mrs. class on Monday morning with no work to show, I can do that. There are consequences, but I decide what happens. There is no one to blame but myself for lateness or conduct issues, and I am in some part glad to be able to take over my own actions.
On the contrary, there is no one to blame but myself for lateness or conduct issues. This double-edged sword tends to slice both ways when it comes down to consequences. Being my own boss means that I can go out with my friends, but when my assignment is late because I didn’t set my reminder and went out with friends, it falls on me. Not the teacher for forgetting to
Boss Badge remind the class, not my friend for suggesting dinner, me. If I sleep in and miss class, that’s a me problem and if I miss breakfast because I can’t get up on time, that’s a me problem, too. It’s a large transition to not have reminders and notes coming from all angles. Your teachers, parents, and peers have more responsibilities than holding your hand. As children, this badge was all we ever wanted. Now we resent it, but we must stick it on anyway. There are things we must do when it is time to grow up. This is one of them. It’s time to let go and stick that BYOB pin to your shirt. It feels heavy now, but we’ll grow into it before we know it.