The do-over. You might remember it coming into play during a spirited game of wiffleball in your neighbor's backyard as a kid.

Did that ball land to the right or the left of the rolled up T-shirt that was substituting as a foul line? Without an umpire to judge, and more importantly, because Johnny's backyard wasn't equipped with the proper instant-replay equipment to make an accurate call, there was only one fair way to fix the situation: the do-over.

By just uttering those words -- "do-over" -- you could go back in time, erase that previous play and try again. However, outside of childhood backyard sports (and the occasional mulligan on the golf course), life doesn't allow do-overs.

So many people end up going through life regretting things they did or wondering, "what if" for the things they didn't do.

That's why I'm so lucky to be back here as a student at Penn State this year, doing it over.

Some years ago -- I'll leave the actual number for you amateur sleuths to figure out -- I was a student studying journalism here at University Park. Unfortunately the studying part didn't come into play much and between the partying, oversleeping and, well, partying, my academics were left in the toilet.

Finally, the university, in its infinite wisdom, decided to step in and put an end to the madness, telling me and my 1.71 GPA to hit the road.

Suddenly, after being in school since I was a 5 year old, I was forced to enter the full-time working world a little earlier than expected.

I had always thought that, as a writer, the classes I took weren't as important as my marginal talent and the experience I got writing for the Collegian, where I worked as a reporter and then a columnist.

I was wrong.

And this is my first bit of advice -- you might think that some of your classes are stupid, and they won't come into play in the "real world," but the truth is, going through all this to get that piece of paper that says you've graduated is extremely important.

Just the fact that you have a college degree shows an employer that you have the ability to set out to do a task and complete it.

Over the years I moved from one job to another, hoping that each would end up being my career and the thing I was "meant" to do.

But none of them were what I was meant to do, and the fact that I never finished getting my degree always bothered me.

I kept wondering if I should, or could, go back and finish my degree.

It's true when people say the longer you're out of school, the harder it is to go back. And I had a lot of reasons to not go back.

I questioned if I could fit in with a group of younger students.

I had a nice apartment and a regular paycheck, was I willing to give that up and go back to being a poor college student?

And after all this time away from school, did I even remember how to learn?

But here I am, in my second semester back at Penn State, and I seem to be doing pretty well.

One of the first things I learned this time around is that actually going to the classes is about half the battle.

And so I give you another piece of advice that might be especially useful to freshmen: just go to class; it makes everything so much easier.

I will probably always worry that I'm sticking out in this sea of 18 to 22 year olds.

I'm sure it's going to be impossible for me to completely fit in, but the one thing I hadn't thought about was being older than some of my professors.

Although I don't have a big problem with it, I sometimes look at them and wonder if they're thinking "...how old are you?"

But I'm certainly trying my best to fit in.

I might not have mastered Facebook or MySpace yet (which I think is probably a good thing), and you're not going to catch me at the big party this weekend, but I did buy an mp3 player during break -- although I admit I'm not quite "hip" enough for an iPod just yet, and that has to account for something.

So for anyone who thinks they shouldn't go back and try something again because they failed the first time, or you regret some decision you made in the past, remind yourself that life doesn't have a referee in the replay booth.

Maybe we were a little wiser as kids when we knew the best solution was a do-over.