On a college campus on Long Island two summers ago, my fellow students and I had just come back to the dorm at 10 p.m. We were all part of a college prep program for high school kids, and we'd spent 2 hours in study hall reading scientific research for our bio-mechanics class and preparing a case for constitutional law.

Everyone was starving and wide awake because we'd eaten Skittles and M&Ms and were going through a serious sugar rush. The girls and I asked Joyce (our resident advisor, sort of like a babysitter for college kids) if we could order pizza, and the guys also asked their RA.

I really needed pizza because I didn't eat much of the food at the college cafeteria. One night, for example, they tried to feed us "steak," but it was hard and cold and the sauce they cooked it in was bitter. There was a rumor that the meat they served was feline. When we first arrived on campus, we'd seen a lot of cats—but not lately.

Balancing Work With Fun
With Joyce's OK, we ordered four different pies: cheese, pepperoni, chicken and pineapple. The girls couldn't go to the boys' floor, but we could still talk to them through the stairway and windows.

We stayed up till 1 o'clock playing music, laughing and talking about the funny things that had happened that day.

Meanwhile, my mind was full of contradictory thoughts: I was enjoying my friends, but I also worried that hanging out late would tire me out for my classes the next morning.

Being (almost) a college student was harder than I thought it would be; I didn't expect to have so much work to balance with all the fun.

In Control for the First Time
The past two summers, I spent 2-3 weeks at two different colleges: the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University and Thomas More College in New Hampshire. I'm in a program at school called I-LEAD (Institute of Leadership Excellence and Academic Development) that requires two college summers; one with my fellow I-LEAD members from New York City (that was C.W. Post) and one on my own (that was Thomas More).

What appealed to me about trading my family's apartment in the Bronx for a college dorm room was the idea of independence and having control over my decisions. During the school year, I have to constantly call my mother and tell her where I'm going and when I'll be coming back. And before I went to C.W. Post, my mom only allowed me to travel outside New York if I was with her. I thought she was treating me like a baby.

Bare Feet and Sunglasses
At home I can't stay up late and talk to my friends on the phone; I am required to go to bed at 10:30 p.m. So when I was away at the campuses, I loved the chance to talk to my friends before I drifted into a deep sleep.

Also, my mother sometimes makes me change my clothes if she doesn't like what I'm wearing, but at Thomas More and C.W. Post, I could make my own outfits, sometimes even borrowing clothes from the other girls. I walked around barefoot. In class, I wore sunglasses and ate snacks, both of which are forbidden at my Catholic high school.

But I wasn't completely on my own at the colleges. If the people in charge found out that I was doing something inappropriate—like leaving campus—then I would get punished. Even with the rules, though, I felt almost like an adult. I felt free.

A Massive Workload
Still, I felt I had to prove myself academically. I wanted to show that going away to the programs wasn't a waste.

At C.W. Post, I enjoyed all four of the classes I had to take: bio-mechanics, constitutional law, editorial writing and a course on taking the PSAT. Even though we had a writing assignment every night on top of reading and research, I did all the work I had to do.

I was really proud in my constitutional law course when I "won" a case in front of the "Supreme Court" with my fellow "lawyers," and I was excited when my group and I gave a presentation of our hip and femur model in bio-mechanics.

Even as a high school student I get a lot of homework, and occasionally I pull all-nighters to get everything done. The main difference was that at the college programs, I almost always had to stay up late to finish my work.

"Lights-out" time was 11 p.m., but I was up later than that, usually around 1 or 2 o'clock in morning, especially at Thomas More.

The courses I had to take there—apologetics (about Christianity), literature, politics and philosophy—didn't appeal to me as much as the classes at C.W. Post, and the workload was even heavier. The teachers assigned more than 100 pages of reading every night.

So many times, part of me wanted to put my head down and sleep, while the other side of me wanted to work hard to do well. And even when I did stay up late, I was often dissatisfied with the quality of my work; it suffered because of my tiredness.

Relieving My Own Stress
Whenever I said I was stressed out by the work, my friends at Thomas More told me that I should calm down and that the summer programs were no big deal.

Most of the high school students there were in a program like I-LEAD. They went to Thomas More because their parents made them go. My mom, on the other hand, simply said yes to I-LEAD and its college requirements; I joined I-LEAD because I wanted to.

The other students at Thomas More didn't care as much as I did about our classes, and they spent more time socializing than I did. I love to talk and hang out, too, so it was frustrating to watch other people having fun.

Still, I liked being able to choose when to work and when to play. Much of the time at the college programs, I was tired and anxious. But at home, I feel like I have no control over how I relieve my stress (nor do I have much control over when I do homework). My mom is in charge of my life.

At Thomas More, I often took advantage of the fact that I could disappear for a while. Once, a couple of friends and I followed a dirt road far away from the college's main buildings and into a cleared-out grassy area where a statue of the Virgin Mary stood. This spot was so calm that I was able to relax and forget my worries.

At C.W. Post and Thomas More, I loved being able to decide how to get my work done and how to unwind, even though it was hard to balance the two. The important thing was that the balancing act was up to me. I was on my own, and it felt great. I can't wait to be independent again when I go to college for real.

Copyright 2004 by Youth Communication, www.youthcomm.org. Reprinted by permission.

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