Hello friends,
You’ve made it to more than halfway through the year. That’s pretty huge! I didn’t think I would during my first semester here. So you’ve got me beat. Freshman year was probably the worst year of my life but I hope it’s not yours. If it is, shoot me an email, we can chat about it. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now: I’d like to dish out some general advice. I wish someone not only spoon-fed me this kind of stuff but actively made sure I digested it. Look, your time here is finite. It’s incredibly short. And at the end of three years, you will want a lot more out of it than attending some Morrissey dorm party or having really great tailgating pictures — although those are crucial. So.
1. Make friends.
And not just the kids who you chanced to talk to during Frosh-O; orientation at ND is extremely strange and while friends-by-proximity are a real thing, think about adding some friends that share your interests and not just your dorm. Contact those clubs from activities night, ask that person who says cool things in class if they want to grab lunch. Be outgoing. What are they going to say, that they hate your scarf? I’ve only said that to a friend once and I was only trying to help.
People here are really nice and really smart. My biggest regret is that I let shyness stand in the way of a lot of things freshman year because I was self-conscious enough to think I was the nerdiest and most introverted person on the planet, or at least in the ND bubble. I am. But I have some friends who actively want to hang out with me and who listen to me rant at 3 AM after a few beers about wage inequality in the workforce. (You’re a champ, friend.)
Put yourself out there – everyone is still new and while you might think cliques have formed, they’ll dissipate. To find people with your interests, start with clubs and classes. To make more friends in your dorm, be the first one to say hello. You’ll eventually stop to talk to each other and then end up popping into each other’s rooms all the time. Make yourself approachable and approach in return. That is exactly how I met one of my best friends in Welsh Fam – we went through a semester of casually saying hi to each other before we started talking and now she is a major source of distraction in my life because I like chatting incessantly with her so much.
And that being said, try to introduce yourself to one upper class person. Find a peer mentor– not one of the ones that they assigned you or your RA. Find a person in your major or someone you think is really successful. Talk to your RA about friends s/he has in your major, ask your dean about an upperclassman they admire and then ask them to grab coffee. They’ll love it.
(I know I keep saying this, but if you want any of these things to happen, email me at annaleerice@hercampus.com. I talk to a lot of people so even if I am not majoring in something you find remotely interesting, I can find someone who is. Srsly, heart you guys lemme help you.)
2. Remember alcohol is just a liquid.
Learn your tolerance and don’t worship it. Yes, finding beverages while under-age is of bizarrely sacred importance in college and there is a shrine of movies and lame books dedicated to finding that holy grail. But it’s not a big deal. It really isn’t. People drink. In fact, it’s one of the largest industries out there. It happens, it’s fun, and it’s a social lubricant, whatever.
Don’t use it as a crutch.
Especially if you’re not used to drinking. Don’t pace your friends and don’t do anything that you wouldn’t do sober. No one likes to take care of people, so if you’re that person on that Friday night, don’t be that person the next Friday night. Pay it forward.
And for God’s sake, put your phone on airplane mode. Drunk texts are not cute. Which brings me to my next point:
3. Taylor Swift might make millions of dollars talking about boys but you won’t.
My older cousin gave me some sage advice during his wedding weekend about two years ago in this context: I was a sophomore feverishly texting my then-boyfriend and completely ignoring everyone around me. He was all “dude, put down the phone. In two years you won’t remember this kid’s name.” Not entirely accurate (I’d like to think that my memory is a bit longer than that) but still pretty spot-on: I don’t talk to that boy, my social group is really different and diverse, and I switched majors four times. The things I wanted sophomore year are completely and utterly different than what I want as a senior. And what I do I want now?
Nothing. Because there are a million things I want to and have to do and I am graduating soon and oh-my-God have I done enough good for this campus, seen all of my friends, and killed it on job interviews? Kind of but there is huge room for improvement. Things get busy.
Moral of the story: Relax. If Connor McPatrick isn’t texting you back or that bro at a dorm party was talking to another girl, trust me there are too many men with extremely Irish names on this campus for you to fixate on just one. Maybe you’ll find “the one” next week, next year, or after college. Maybe you won’t. And maybe you aren’t even into hetero-normative dating schematics! ND has finally entered into the 21st century and we’re glad to talk about this kind of stuff.
4. Do your homework.
Seriously. All of it. Get the best mother-f*cking grades you can get. They open doors. And this place is absurdly, crucifyingly, unfairly expensive. Even if you bomb this semester, getting straight A’s can raise your GPA .1 each semester. You have so much time to do so, so well. Get off Facebook (I can’t; it’s the worst, I’m annoying, don’t be me), stop snapping, and read that book. No, skimming a technical book doesn’t count. Read all of it. Highlight. Take notes in the margin. Can you do all the practice problems? No? Figure them out. Be your own tiger mother– someone has to be.
Look, the harsh reality is that ND is a really, really good school but it’s not Harvard. Are you pre-med? You can bet everything that there’s an equally qualified kid who goes to Harvard with your GPA and while US News and World Report Rankings are total bunk, weight is given to your alma mater.
Get tutoring.
Study– actually study– with friends.
Go to office hours. All of them. Every week. Professors are nice. And they are smarter than you are. Talk to them.
Full disclosure: My friends with higher GPAs and those who sought good advice from peers, deans, and counselors got the best jobs and med/ law school acceptances after graduation. Be one of them. Own it, you got into here, now do something better. I’m not saying you have to sell your soul to get a high-paying job but that you should strive to be the best in your chosen field. This prodding is equally applied to finance and anthropology majors.
And while everyone says that you’ll remember the night out with your friends more than that essay why not act like a rational adult and do your essay before you go out with friends? There are enough hours in the day. We live in Indiana. Indiana. Let me say it again: Indiana.
There is not much going on here, just go to the library.
5. If you are sucking at your major, switch it.
But not after trying for a semester. Look, I didn’t do particularly well in gen. chem because I didn’t have the discipline to really buckle down and study. I hated chem labs, didn’t care about how molecules interacted, and really missed studying the US government. But damnit I was going to be a doctor. Why? I thought I wanted to help people in as base a sense as possible but there are a lot of other people out there that can accomplish that better, so I quit. I switched into Arts & Letters.
Not Arts & Crafts. Econ is really hard sometimes. So are grad classes in International Security. There are so many…variables. Whenever you take upper level classes in ANY subject, it’s hard. So don’t feel shame in switching into something you actually enjoy. Just do it. I really wish I didn’t spend two years of my college experience analyzing chemicals and loathing my classes. Sure, I know the scientific method and can draw some killer hexagons (thanks to all the organic chemistry classes that are now electives on my transcript!) but just…no.
Everyone starts out as a pre-med or engineer before realizing there are a million different career paths and some of the most gainfully employed people I know where random Arts & Letters kids who ended up going into consulting, getting into incredible law schools, or basking in the stress on Wall Street. You can do it. Just figure out what “it” is.
Also, we have the best business school in the country. You sound haughty dismissing it as “too easy.” Working in i-banking is not “too easy” and I know a lot of kids who wish they were doing that now.
6. Get a job, do some research, or volunteer…
In the field that you might want to pursue after college. It’s the best introduction to the field that you’ll get. So go to the career center or your dean to figure out how. Start looking for internships now. Right now. You can’t prepare early enough.
But how do you find out what you want to do? Use your electives to figure that out. Curiosity pays off. Wander the library and feel yourself gravitating towards something. Take a job on campus through the job board that will give you experience in tutoring, managerial work, or research. Ultimately, you have to find these things for yourself but starting off on Inside ND jobs and stalking GoIrish are both good launch pads. And ask your career counselor or dean for some alum introductions, especially young alums. Email them asking for 10 minutes of their time to chat about their job and how they got there. It’s great no-risk training for how to talk in a professional manner and a vehicle for beginning to explore your interests.
7. Get off campus.
Go downtown. Go hiking in rural Indiana. Go to Chicago. You have the time. The bus from library circle will take you to most of the key places anyway. It’s safe, it’s free, and there are maps to ensure you don’t get too lost. Cabs will rip you off; only take those at night to get to social events. There are actually fun things to do downtown, like conferences and farmer’s markets and great cafés and restaurants and art museums. You will not only appreciate ND more because of the poverty you see around you, you might get motivated enough to actively fight against it.
And that being said, go abroad. It changed my life and it will change yours.
So those are my seven pieces of wisdom or seven horcruxes to kill before graduation. Do people even make Harry Potter references anymore? Whatever, I’m too old for this. I like to read real books now. Knowing things is fun.
You got this.
You so got this.