BAYLOR BOUND
honest advice from honestly nice people
From: Tom Hanks (no, not that one—I just retired from Baylor’s English Department, and Calleigh asked me to send you a note) Dear Colleague-to-be at Baylor, You probably don’t know me, though you may see me walking about the campus in the weeks to come (I’ll be wearing a hat—not a cap but a hat. Not many of us left . . .). Having taught at Baylor for 41 years, I’ve met and talked with many first-year students. I’ve also read a lot about the process of having a good—even EXCELLENT—first year at college. Here are some tips I’ve observed or found elsewhere concerning one major element in your success at Baylor: 1. Realize that you have exactly 24 hours in a day—not a second more. How you use those hours will either result in a pleasant, successful year or in a waste of time when you neither enjoyed yourself nor produced anything worth your time. Time, I say again—Kipling says that if we can fill each hour with sixty seconds’-worth of distance run, we’ll be successful. That does NOT mean that you must be studying every hour of the day. Here’s what I suggest:
How is your time coming? Well, on the average day, you will have, let’s say, either two classes (TTh) or three classes (MWF). That comes to 4 ½ hours (TTH) plus 6 hours (MWF): 10 ½ hours per week, or 2 hours daily averaged out over 5 days. You now have 10 ½ hours left in your average day.
All this will actually work for you IF you’re mindful of your time. If you’re not—and I know that I have to start such mindfulness immediately, or I lose out—you won’t learn as much as you could, and you won’t have as much fun as you could, and you won’t be fulfilling the obligations you have taken on from family, friends, financial institutions, and—most of all—your obligation to yourself. “In everything you do, study to show yourself approved unto God.” Not a bad watch-word. Godspeed, and good luck, colleague. I hope to see you on campus. Tom Hanks
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