Starting Strong

By Cody Frohman

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Friends, family, and professors have repeated this phrase to me numerous times over the past few years, and as I enter my fourth semester of college it is starting to sink in that this cliché really is true.

Planning used to be a big part of my life. I was the kid who wrote down every assignment in high school and strived to finish the assignments weeks early.  But somewhere between the end of my first semester of college, and the start of my second I stopped planning. I had a really easy course load and it seemed like the need to plan vanished.  I had so little going on I could easily keep up with everything without really planning. I found myself procrastinating on everything, barely making deadlines, and forgetting about scheduled quizzes. I got through the semester just fine so I continued along my third semester, taking 18 hours, and working 20+ hours a week. But it soon hit me that I needed to start planning or my grades would take a hit.

So I started planning again, writing out every assignment, every quiz, and every test. Now I’m entering my fourth semester and I am starting strong. I am organizing my days to ensure that I am being productive and efficient with my time.

One of the things I love about new semesters is the opportunity to start over. There are new classes, new experiences, and new opportunities. Along with a new start, comes the opportunity to start strong. The steps we take determine our direction, and if we take steps to start strong we will end strong. But if we start off the semester without a plan, we’re going to find ourselves at the end barely treading water.

My suggestion to you would be to start strong by planning. Make a plan for what you want this semester to look like. If you want a 4.0 GPA, then make a plan to study. If you want to stop procrastinating, plan your time to ensure that you are finishing tasks efficiently and productively. If you want to run the Bearathon, make a plan so you won’t end up attempting to run 13.1 miles on March 21st without taking a step before the race!

Take advantage of the new semester and plan your steps, it’ll save you a lot of pain in the end!

No Place I’d Rather Be

By Cody Frohman

It’s that time of the semester – we’re way past the excitement of starting a new round of classes and the nervousness of taking our first tests of the semester. We’re close to the end of the semester, but too far to start celebrating. This is often the part of the semester that’s hardest for me – routines feel monotonous, my discipline level has gone way down and I’m tired of that one class I just can’t do well in. I’m ready for Thanksgiving to be here, finals to be over and for Christmas break to mark the beginning of new and exciting things all over again.

While in the middle of overwhelming myself with thoughts of the future, I was reminded of how valuable my time at Baylor has been. I am at one of the best universities in the world (arguably the best), and I’m spending part of it wanting time to go faster! So instead of focusing on all the things I don’t like about school right now, I decided to focus on the things that I love about Baylor. Here are three of the things I came up with.

1. The Tradition – Everyone has a favorite Baylor tradition, but everyone at Baylor could argue that we have the best traditions. From Line Camp, to Christmas on 5th Street, to Diadeloso and everything in between, these are things that are unique and integral to a Baylor experience.

2. The Campus – Baylor may not be on a cliff overlooking the ocean. In fact, it’s right by a major freeway with a lot of construction going on. However, I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. There’s nothing like seeing the majesty of Pat Neff lit up green with the sprawling Texas sky behind, or looking over Founder’s Mall in the spring as it starts to warm up from the winter or driving on University Parks as you come up to campus and are welcomed by the grandeur of the Baylor Sciences Building.

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3. The Location – Now, this may not be a popular opinion, but I am a strong supporter of the idea that Waco is a wonderland. Waco doesn’t always have a ton to do, but it has some great things to do – like getting breakfast from the farmer’s market on Saturdays, driving through Cameron Park, going to the waterfall or exotic pet store (it’s a thing, and it is super cool) in Woodway, or even just walking around downtown. Waco is a prime location, and it is only going to get better.

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Yes, this is in Waco. You just have to look for it!

 

Baylor is always going to be a special place to me, and even though the days are sometimes long, the months and the semesters are flying by. I want to make sure that I make the most of it and appreciate and remember why I chose Baylor.

Spontaneity, Stars and Christmas Sweaters

By Cody Frohman

I am convinced that college is the most spontaneous and flexible time in life. There’s no other period when you have both the desire and ability to drop everything to do something crazy and fun with little to no consequences. This week has been a week of spontaneity and flexibility, providing the perfect break in the semester before we head into the last round of tests before finals.

On Tuesday, in the middle of one of the busiest weeks of the semester for me, two friends and I drove up to Dallas to go see a hockey game. None of us are avid hockey fans, but we knew this short trip would be a blast and the perfect opportunity to take a break from school. Homework and studying plans were postponed in favor of the fun this short trip would provide. We left after we all finished work and started driving. We made an obligatory stop at In-N-Out (since two of us are from California) and then arrived at the American Airlines Center to watch the Dallas Stars play and hopefully win. Unfortunately, they lost, but it was still a ton of fun to break our normal schedules and do something different and memorable.

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The rest of the week was back to routine and school until Saturday night when a group of friends and I decided to dress up in Christmas sweaters (and other ridiculous outfits) and drive around Waco listening to Christmas music until we found something to do. We settled on walking around Target, where we decided we should make the most of our trip and do a Secret Santa gift exchange. We all drew names and walked around the store, picking the most inexpensive, ridiculous gifts. We bought our gifts, exchanged them and went back home to watch Christmas movies. It was the most random pre-Christmas celebration, but I know it’ll be one of my favorite memories from this semester.

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Whether you go all the way to Dallas or just to the Target on Bosque, don’t take school too seriously and let the spontaneity of college pass you by. Make the decision to do fun and exciting things, and take advantage of the years you have in college!

Thanksgiving Feast

By Cody Frohman

I love everything about the fall and holiday season. I especially love the food. I take Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner (and their surrounding meals) a little too seriously and always end up eating to the brink of sickness, which I then do all over again for the next few meals.

With that being said, one of the best Thanksgiving meals I have ever had wasn’t at home or created by family members who had been cooking Thanksgiving dinner for years, but was cooked by a group of college students. Every year, the different life groups at my church in Waco put on what we call “Thanksgiving Feasts,” which are huge parties that are a blast with a ton of food. We all cook as much as we can and invite everyone we can. There are all the traditional Thanksgiving foods you can think of, along with dishes that people have grown up eating all over the country.

We start preparing a couple days before. First, we decide who is going to make or bring what, and then we start inviting people in our classes, residence halls and other extracurricular activities. As the day gets closer and we all start cooking, the anticipation increases and it all becomes more and more exciting. Now, if you can imagine, this is quite an interesting experience, as 15 or so college students try to cook an entire Thanksgiving meal for 50 plus people with a limited amount of kitchen supplies, space and knowledge. And yet, somehow, it ends up being amazing.

It’s almost exactly like this… with a little more foil and 10 times more food.

It’s almost exactly like this…with a little more foil and 10 times more food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After all the cooking is finished and everyone arrives, we eat, play games, eat more and have a great time just hanging out with old and new friends. I love how my college friends can take something like Thanksgiving dinner and turn it into something that is reminiscent of home and tradition, but with an entirely different spin. Now that we are away from our families, we get to transform old traditions to make them our own and start new traditions of our own.

Our Thanksgiving feast is coming up in a couple weeks, and if you’d like to come eat and hang out with us, we would love to have you! You can email me at Cody_Frohman@baylor.edu to get more information about the best Thanksgiving dinner of the year (almost guaranteed)!

And The Greatest of These Is…

By Cody Frohman

What do you value most? Well for me, it’s community. While in Welcome Week training and during Welcome Week itself, we played an ice breaker game called “Trashing Your Values.” You start out with ten slips of paper and you write down ten things you value. Through a couple different rounds you trash, trade and have values taken away until you’re left with one value. This game is supposed to encourage you to think about what you truly value – what is important to your life and what is not as important. Both times I played, I ended up with the same three values: grace, justice and community. In the end, community won the game both times.

Community has been a huge part of my experience at Baylor, and it’s the main reason my college experience has been so amazing. When I first arrived at Baylor, I didn’t know a single person – I didn’t go to Line Camp or Orientation. I had never even visited campus before. #outofstateprobs. During my first two months at Baylor, I got connected to a life group through Antioch Community Church and found an amazing group of people who quickly became like family.

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Some of my life group in Mongolia this past summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I decided to come to Baylor, I had absolutely no idea that my life would be completely changed through the community around me. I had no idea I would be part of a group that deeply loves, carries my burdens faithfully, breathes life into me and always points me to God. Along with all of the deep spiritual change I’ve gone through, I’ve also had a ton of fun with my community at Baylor. I’ve gone on a number of spontaneous late night trips when I definitely should have been studying. I’ve gone on life-changing missions trips and spent countless nights laughing and just hanging out with the coolest people in the world (I might be slightly biased…).

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Now, I know what you might be thinking…“Community?? Of all things, you picked community?” It wasn’t easy – I had things like grace, faith, love, justice and mercy written down, but after thinking, I came to the realization that all the things I value are magnified or exemplified by community. I’ve never experienced grace, love and mercy like I have within a community. I’ve never seen such unshakeable faith and a desire for justice than I have within a community.

I entered my freshman year unaware of what was ahead, of what the year would hold. But I left with vision for what was valuable – people. I’ve seen how great community is; I’ve seen the impact it can have as people are transformed and restored. We are people, and we were created to live in community. Whether you find it at church, in your residence hall or through one of Baylor’s many campus organizations, don’t wait to experience the quality community Baylor has to offer.

If you’re interested in learning about more ways to get plugged in to life groups or other organizations, leave a comment below or email me at cody_frohman@baylor.edu.