Go ahead, let 'em influence you

You often hear people giving advice such as “don’t let your friends influence you” or don’t let that person influence you into doing something you don’t want to do.” Although influencing people or having people influence you is often portrayed as a negative thing, I think it may have its advantages as well. Considering we are all in college now, I am going to use our experiences as an example.

College is like a whole different world than high school, especially if your school is far from your home. When we enter college, we may encounter things we have never encountered and want to try things we have yet to try. In my eyes, this is an awesome learning opportunity. I think in college we should let people influence us (as long as you know your limits and boundaries and know what you should and shouldn’t do). At our age, we shouldn’t be afraid to experiment. At school, you’re officially out of your element, so why not go with it! Like I said before, know your limit but work with new situations as you come across them. College is the time to step out of your box. If you don’t do it now, you never will. Too many excuses will come up later in life and you will have wished you had tried more things. As I mentioned in my CBook, “to live is to change often.” People who are predictable are totally boring. No one wants to hang out with someone who never wants to do anything different. Can you imagine doing the same exact thing every Friday of every week?

In high school, most of us had our set group of friends, and most of the time, we grew up with these people. We tended to follow our friends whether we knew it or not. We kept up with the trends of what our friends were doing and we never thought twice when our friends talked us into doing something new. Well why can’t college be the same way? Here at school, you have probably already found a group of people you hang out with every weekend. At a school like this, everyone is so diverse, which to me, is fabulous. I have met people from all over the world who have taught me things I never thought possible.

So I believe in order to make the best out of your college years, you should always be willing to try new things and don’t be afraid of what you might learn from each experience.