In just a few weeks college students everywhere will be packing up and heading back to school. For most of us, this is a familiar and welcome feeling. We are excited to get back to our friends who we haven’t seen for three months, eager to move back into our apartments and dorms, and crazy though it may sound, some of us are even looking forward to getting back to class.
But for some – one class of students in particular – this is an entirely new experience that can seem quite daunting.
One night two years ago, exactly two weeks before the first day of my freshman year of college, I began to panic. I wasn’t ready to leave and be on my own. I didn’t have almost anything I needed for school, or for life in a dorm. I was terrified of not making any friends. I didn’t think I could do it. Two weeks and a pep talk later I was having the time of my life, walking down the streets of my new town, with my new friends, eager to jump right in to this new phase of my life.
The transition from high school to college can be difficult, but with the right mindset and a bit of courage it is also so much fun and so rewarding.
As I sat at Artpark a month ago and watched the class of 2018 walk across the stage and receive their diplomas, I was so incredibly proud of my little sister and all of her friends, girls who I have known and loved for so many years. These girls astound me with their intelligence, humor, love, and dedication, and I am so excited to see all of the amazing things they accomplish in the years to come. So this one is for all of you, a bit of advice from someone who knows you will go so far without it, but wants to give it anyway. These are things that I have learned and that I am still in the process of learning, and I hope that while some of it might seem like common sense, it may provide a bit of comfort and guidance in the coming weeks.
Advice for your First Year of College
1. Don’t be afraid to buy things for your room after you get to school.
This was not something I even wanted to consider going into my freshmen year. I was anxious enough without thinking that I might be missing something important when I got there, so I went out and bought every single thing I could think of to bring with me. As a result, I ended up with more than I needed (and more than I really wanted) and I ended up sending a lot of it home throughout the course of the first semester.
If you aren’t sure exactly how big your room is, or how much extra storage you may need, don’t stress out about getting everything right away. It might be better to wait until you are moved in and have a better idea of how things are going to fit. It will also give you an excuse to locate the nearest target for future reference!
2. Your syllabus is your best friend.
Unlike those one or two page general overviews that you had to take home and have your parents sign and then never look at again in high school, your college syllabi will be your survival guides for each and every one of your classes. Almost everything you need to know for a class, from which books you need, to grading policies, to due dates and descriptions of assignments, to office hours info, will be contained in those pages.
But please don’t let them scare you! On the first day of class when you read through the whole thing and find yourself panicking over the description of your final project because you have no idea what most of it means, take a deep breath and remember that you aren’t supposed to know that yet, that is why you are in the class. By the time that due date rolls around, you will be much more confident in your understanding.
3. Your planner is your second best friend.
Whether you just use a calendar over your desk, or you are like me and have a hard cover, spiral-bound planner with everything you will ever need to know broken down and color-coded, staying organized and on top of things is going to make your college experience a whole lot easier.
Write down all of your due dates and exam dates as soon as you know them and look back often to make sure you know what is coming up. I like to write my assignments on the date they are due in my monthly calendar, and break things down into what I need to get done each day in the weekly section of my planner. Twice a week I set aside time to look at my upcoming assignments and make sure that I am leaving myself enough time to get them done.
As an organized procrastinator with a busy schedule, I don’t always follow my planning perfectly, but having at least general idea of what needs to get done when is a huge help in staying on top of things. I also like to use Google Calendar to keep track of my class, work, and club schedules, and to set reminders for appointments and other events.
It may seem like overkill, and you can call me “extra” all you want, but I promise it works.
4. Find a place to study on campus and off campus (that isn’t your room).
It doesn’t matter how much you love your roommate(s), or how cozy you make your space, if you spend too much time in your dorm room, it will start to feel more like a prison cell.
One of the best ways to avoid this is to do at least some of your homework and other studying somewhere else. And you don’t have to go to the library either! Even on a small campus there are so many great spots to crack open a book or flip through those 200 flashcards you made yesterday and never want to look at again. Find an empty classroom, take over a picnic table in the quad, or settle in at a local coffee shop. Not only will getting out of your room make you actually enjoy being there when you aren’t working, it will also force you not to take that nap that you know you don’t have time for!
5. Read your textbooks.
Not every college student you talk to is going to agree with me on this one. Some people think it’s just not necessary, and in some cases they are right.
I for one can tell you that after trying my hardest to read my one of my statistics books, I gave up. Reading about math just wasn’t working for me, and it ended up bringing more stress than it was worth, especially because we covered everything we needed to know in class. But in a lot of other classes that isn’t the case. A favorite expression from many of my professors so far has been, “If it’s in the book it’s fair game for the exam, even if we don’t cover it in lecture”. And that has proven to be true.
I know that textbooks are not always the most captivating reading material, but if you break it down and don’t try to read an entire chapter in one sitting, it actually isn’t so bad. I also know that not everybody learns the most by reading, and if that is you and you really feel strongly that you aren’t getting anything out of those pages, I encourage you to not forget about it completely. It never hurts to just read over some of the sections your professors didn’t cover in class. Most of the time you can figure out whether or not it is absolutely necessary to read everything you are assigned within the first few weeks, and your professors will be able to guide you in that too.
And if you need a little extra motivation to keep reading, just remember how much money you dropped on that book and don’t let it go to waste!
6. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
This is something I have always struggled with when it came to school. For some strange reason I always had this little voice in the back of my head telling me that if I had to ask for help it was because there was something wrong with me, or that my teachers would think I was stupid. I now know how absolutely 100% ridiculous that is.
It is literally your professors’ job to help you. They all have office hours for a reason. Use them. If you have a question, ask. Your professors want you to succeed and will take notice if you are putting in the extra effort to do so. Office hours are also a great opportunity for you and your professors to get to know each other better, especially if your class sizes are large enough to prevent getting to know each other in class. And if you don’t want to go alone, bring a friend. If you have a question about the material you probably aren’t the only one, and having another mind in the mix may help both or all of you understand the topic that much better.
7. Don’t be afraid of early classes.
Don’t fear the 8am class (or at least the 9:30 if 8:00 is pushing it), especially if you are not a morning person.
As a very non-morning person, I never thought I would be saying this, but I have found that I actually like having morning classes better than afternoon or evening classes. It doesn’t have much to do with the classes themselves so much as how you can structure your day around them. When your first class of the day doesn’t start until 1:30, you might be tempted to set your alarm for 10, lay in bed on your phone for half an hour, get up and slowly start getting ready for the day. Before you know it it is time to leave. Then by the time you get back you have to do homework, eat dinner, go to practice, rehearsal, or meetings, and just like that the day is over, you got the bare minimum done, and now you have to stay up until 2:00am to finish that paper you didn’t start when you said you were going to.
Or, you can get up for that early class and have the rest of the day to get homework done, go to the gym, hang out with your friends, and get to bed at a decent hour. Productivity is the greatest enemy of procrastination, and those early classes have been really helpful (to me at least) in fighting that battle.
8. Get involved.
This one is simple. Go to the involvement fair, or whatever your school calls it, and find a few clubs to join. Find out what each club is about and figure out what interests you. Maybe you are looking to get involved in campus ministry, or physics club, or ballroom dancing, or quidditch. Whatever it is that sparks your interest there is sure to be something that you can get involved in, and if there isn’t a club there for you already, create one yourself!
Clubs aren’t the only way to get involved on campus. Take part in volunteer opportunities, go to campus sponsored events like Pinterest nights, movie nights, or glow in the dark roller skating (which is super fun and also very difficult by the way). Joining my school’s dance club was one of the best decisions I made freshman year. The girls (and boy) that I now dance with have become some of my best friends, and after 14 years of dancing pre-college, I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to keep doing it today. I for one am so looking forward to going back and picking up where we left off in the groups I am already part of, and getting involved in some new and different things as well.
9. Your health matters most.
The freshman 15 is not a myth, and I do not believe that it is any sort of coincidence that so many mental illnesses tend to show up in a person’s early 20s.
College is stressful and also presents a nearly endless supply of alcohol, caffeine, and junk food, a combination that is in every way connected to the aforementioned physical and mental health concerns. Going into college I was determined to be that person who came out of their freshman year healthier than I was going into it. That did not happen. I am a stress eater, and the endless supply of cheese and carb based foods, plus the ice cream bar so strategically placed in the dining hall did nothing to help that. It is a good thing that coffee and alcohol have no appeal to me or else I might have gained the freshman 50 instead of just the 15.
But I did also go through several periods of varying lengths where I was very healthy, and what I learned in those times is what I share with you now.
Don’t fall into the dining hall traps
Hit up the salad bar instead of the pasta bar and vary your toppings so you don’t get bored from eating the same thing all the time. Grab a piece of fruit on the way out of the dining hall instead of that ice cream. Choose popcorn over chips, and drinking water over pop or juice.
Take advantage of the fitness center
Find out about the fitness opportunities your school offers, be it hopping on the treadmill a few times a week, or taking a fitness class. I started going to Zumba several times a week my freshman year and I don’t know what I would do without it. It is super fun and high energy, and allows me to get in a decent amount of exercise without having to go to the dreaded gym. It is also a huge source of stress relief and has been the perfect way to start and/or end my days.
Find something good for you that you love to do and commit to doing it. Don’t make excuses and don’t quit. Your body and your mind will thank you for it a hundred times over.
10. Know what you want.
Better yet, know what you want and be prepared to make the choices that will get you there.
Are you going into college with the intention of coming out of each semester with a 4.0? Is it your goal to become president of as many clubs as you possibly can? Maybe you really want to make a ton of new friends and go out every weekend. Whatever your goals are for your college experience, it is important to figure out what you need to do to reach them and to be prepared to do those things.
Now, I want to make it clear that this advice does not extend to anything that might put you in harm’s way, like allowing yourself to be hazed in order to join a sorority or fraternity, or getting trashed every weekend to “impress” that guy you have your eyes on.
What I’m talking about here is knowing just how much effort you are going to have to put in to get those positive things you want out of your college experience. If you want that 4.0, go to class, read your textbooks, communicate with your professors, and accept that you might have to chose studying over going out sometimes. If you want to start over and meet a ton of new people, join clubs, go to campus sponsored events, talk to people in your classes.
Your intentions, and the means by which you follow through with them will make a world of difference in your experience, and it helps to have an idea of what those are before you jump in.
11. Find balance.
I saved this lesson for the end for two reasons:
1. This is one of the biggest factors that will influence your college experience.
2. This is something I struggle (and I mean seriously struggle) with on a daily basis.
In fact, this is something that most people struggle with throughout their lives, and for many, it truly begins in college. Balance is so so important. It can make the difference between a college experience that you love, and one that you hate.
I am a perfectionist, especially when it comes to my schoolwork. While this trait has helped me achieve great things academically, my inability to put my computer down and go to sleep until I am happy with every single word of a ten page paper, even if it is 2:30 am and I have class at 9:00, has not been so great for my health or my social life. My love for dance and the club that has become my family also had me rehearsing nearly 13 hours a week this past semester, which, no matter how much I loved it, took a toll on the whole health and happiness thing too.
I struggled with finding balance between the things I had to do and the things I wanted to do, and between the side of me that wanted to get out and be with people and the side of me that wanted to be alone with a book and cup of tea. Finding that balance is something that I am going to be continuously working on during this second half of my undergrad experience. Whatever you do in college, and in life, make sure that you are working to find that balance that will allow you to be productive but not overworked, and able to do more than just one of the things you love. It is not always easy but it is so worth it.
There is so much more that can be said on this topic, and anyone who has ever had a conversation with me about it knows that talking about these things and giving advice based on the lessons I have leaned is one of my favorite things to do. I hope that you can take this advice, and all of what you receive from others and use it to help turn your college experience into something incredible. I wish all of you the very best of luck and can’t wait to see what you create with the next four years. You’ve got this!
*Originally posted July 2018