Take it from me, I've been there.

Today I started working on my baby brother's high school graduation gift. I won't start crying about about I can't believe he's graduating because that would just be boring for anyone reading this. While browsing the card section, I realized that all the graduation cards stink. Step it up, Hallmark. They all said the same thing, "You made it, let's party!" Well, "let's party" isn't exactly the message I was hoping to send to my 17 year-old brother. The only other option was a money-holder card. No, I am not giving him any money, thanks Hallmark.

After 5 minutes of being really angry with the card selection, I decided I would write my own. It would be fabulous, I would simply write a letter to my baby bro. I thought it would be neat to write a "things I wish I had known going to college" sort of letter. While I start thinking about the past three years of my life, I realized something. All the "advice" I thought I should give him is advice people gave me, I just didn't listen.

Number one, go to class. Well, while this is great advice I heard many times, I didn't exactly listen. (Sorry mom and dad, ignore this!) Number two, make friends with your professors. This is a great secret to success I didn't figure out until my junior year. Number three, it is OK to miss a party every now and then. Believe it or not, you will not die if you stay in once in a while and relax! I know, it is really hard to believe, but you should definitely try it sometime.

I think the best advice I got that I didn't listen to is to leave your high school relationships in high school. So many freshmen come to college determined to make their high school romance last, despite the distance. It is true that some people do make it, most of them don't. It is always funny to watch them all dissolve around Christmas time. I wish I had listened, but I just knew it was going to work. Ha, who was I kidding.

So after all this I started to think, I got great advice, but I didn't listen, so why would my baby brother? I could give him all the advice in the world, but who says he will listen to me? We all know he thinks I have all the answers to life anyway (yeah right.) So I realized there is really only one thing he needs to listen to. The best advice I can give him is this, listen to other people's advice. I repeat, listen to other people's advice.

I think the smartest thing you can do is to listen to people who have been where you are going, they know what they are talking about, mainly because they didn't listen to people before them. If I could go back, I would have taken the advice given to me, so I can only hope that my baby brother will do just that.