AJ reflects on surviving first year
AJ stopped by Founders Hall on Tuesday for a chat, wrapping up his first year at Augustana.
First on his mind, he has a pair of papers due Friday in his “Morality and Artificial Intelligence” and “American Christianities” classes, totaling 18 pages
“They could be the death of me,” he said.
Following his finals next week, AJ is driving some seven hours up to Wisconsin to meet his family for a short vacation at a rental house.
Then coming up at the end of June, he leaves on his Jewish Birthright trip — “Ten days of awesome, amazing, super-excited Israeli fun.”
Although he won’t return to the football team in the fall, AJ had a strong spring season throwing the shot on the track team. His season-best of 43 feet, 1½ inches back in April was a team best, and he’s optimistic good offseason workouts will put him in great position to improve as a sophomore.
Finally, the old soul has some words of wisdom for incoming first-year students and those in high school still deciding where to attend college.
“You’ll be questioning yourself about how you got 50 pounds of crap in a 10-pound bag,” AJ said of his first year of college. “You have to eat the elephant one bite at a time. If you try to take the whole thing on, you’re gonna choke and die.
“So take it slow, and just know that if you don’t get a good grade on a paper or completely miss something, it’s going to be all right. You’re going to live through it.”
