First semester of college can be scary for some. After the comfort of high school, teenagers are placed in student bodies much larger and more intimidating than accustomed to and encouraged to learn subjects they’re still unsure about, all while still adjusting to life away from home.
After reevaluating my college lifestyle, I have some goals to tackle this next semester while doing well and feeling good. After talking to many other freshmen, I found I’m not alone.
While I spent many late nights studying hard to achieve high marks in my first semester, I know I can only improve. But this isn’t my top goal of semester two. Personally, I want to look more presentable and feel better about myself when going to class. Enough of rolling out of bed a half hour before I need to be somewhere else on campus and showing up to class with my hair in a bun, sporting sweats and Uggs. Even if this means waking up a little earlier, I want to make sure I look like a put-together human being for each of my classes. This means fewer sweatpants and more makeup. By putting myself together, I find I feel better and am more ready to tackle my day.
Julia Starikovsky, a freshman psychology major said her goal for this semester is to “try new things.” She hopes that with these new experiences, she will be able to land an internship for this summer. She hopes to join a sorority and continue dancing on her dance team. She also wants to become a much more active member in Maryland’s Hillel chapter and join a biology or premed society.
Many freshmen, like Ben Bryer, have no clue what they want to major in yet at UMD, let alone what they want to do with the rest of their lives. Bryer said he wants “to gain a better sense of [his] academic interests and find a major that really stands out to [him],” a common goal among freshmen who are feeling lost in a sea of options. He hopes his classes this semester will help him see a future goal and will look more in depth into his top options in order to choose something fit for him.
Freshman Zach Karetsky lives in a dorm on campus and his semester goal is to get rid of the impossibly large number of dining points in his plan. Though seemingly simple, this goal might be the hardest to achieve merely by the fact that everyone either spends their points too quick or too slowly.
Jackie Mehl, who is currently undecided in major, is one of the many freshmen entering sorority recruitment this spring. One of her goals is “to get into a sorority that [she] loves” and “to meet a lot of new people.” She thinks these two goals will somehow meet together in the end, in that joining a sorority will help her meet so many new people and her future sisters will help her and encourage her to do well in her classes.
It’s much easier for freshmen to get a grip on what they want out of college now that they’re more comfortable with the demanding schedules included. With some more direction, these freshmen will soon be pros at mastering the day-to-day lives of college kids.