Welcome back, Demon Deacons! After a restful summer away, the Deacs are back to play. As I reflect back on freshman year, now a year older (and only slightly wiser), I think about what I learned along the way. While it is both terrifying and exciting to embark on a new phase of your life, there is so much to look forward to! In order to help the baby Deacs that are coming onto campus with wonderment in their eyes and butterflies in their stomachs, I asked a few people to give the class of 2020 some helpful tips. Below are pointers people wish they knew coming into freshman year; hopefully, these pieces of advice allow for you, the nervous newcomers, to find some relief in the notion that your friends and family were right: everything is going to be just fine.
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“Join clubs or do intramurals to meet more people!” –Sydney ’19
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“I would say just trust that everything will work out. The first few weeks might be hard and you might have a group of friends but still feel like you don’t fit in but as time progresses and you get in a routine, everything starts to fall in line and you get your true friend group and you start to understand why you picked Wake” –Alex’19
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“I would say freshmen should try to get involved with everything. Don’t be afraid to sign up for every club that sparks your interest because you never know who you’re going to meet or what you’re going to learn!” –Lucy ’19 “I would just say be open to meeting new people— you’ll find lifelong friends in unexpected places. College goes by in the blink of an eye and you won’t meet a more amazing group of people anywhere else so take advantage of it! ” –Sam ’17
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“My advice would be to not be scared if you don’t love it the first week or two weeks or even month. Everyone you know who is older always says how fun college is and how it’s so much greater than high school. But it takes time to get to that point, especially if you’re going to a school without your hometown friends. It’s an adjustment, but totally normal to be freaked out until you have your new “norm” “. –Julie ’18
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Lastly, my advice to you, dear reader, is to not overthink things; you are only a freshman in college once. So take class seriously but also go out and have fun because before you know it you’ll be looking out the back window of your car as you leave campus for the summer.
*Cover photo credit: http://www.wfu.edu/orangebowl/blog/photos/20070103.godeacs.jpg