Hello, Class of 2016 and welcome to the greatest chapter of your life! As a recent college freshman survivor, I feel well equipped to effectively prepare, warn, and excite you for a bit of what you can expect and perhaps avoid this upcoming year. Consider this your “Freshman Survival Guide” and deem yourselves lucky you stumbled upon this article, for you now have some inside scoop on the upcoming semesters.
WHAT TO EXPECT:
- You will meet an obscene amount of people and almost immediately forget everyone’s names
- You will push off doing laundry as long as possible. It is a huge inconvenience in college
- Although you are only taking four classes, you will not have as much free time as you thought you would
- Professors will give you a syllabus on the first day of classes and expect you to live and breathe those pieces of paper. You will be expected to come to class more prepared than the professors are
- You will pull at least one all-nighter per semester and you will regret it
- You will find your favorite spot in the library and feel very confused, lost, and upset when it is taken
- You will try your hardest to pay attention in lectures and your A.D.D. will get the best of you the majority of the time
- You will miss high school standard 5 paragraph papers. 20 page papers will become your enemy
- You will study harder than you ever thought possible
- The library becomes the biggest hot spot during midterms and finals. You will feel FOMO if you are not there until early hours of the morning
TIPS:
- Avoid snacking when studying late or when munchies kick in. “Freshman 15” is not a myth
- Go to school events and get yourself involved. A “too cool for school” attitude should have been left behind at high school graduation
- Create relationships with professors and TA’s. Being a wallflower will not do your GPA any good! Make office hour appointments regularly
- Meet people in your classes. Friendships made in class will only benefit you when you need a study group or missed notes
- Save most partying for the weekends, but some reckless random weekday nights are the ones you will remember forever
- Be a respectful roommate and avoid fights. Dorms are small and there is no room for awkward tension
- Take classes outside of your field of interest. You might realize you don’t have your entire life planned out as well as you thought
- Take pictures! Even though your friends might change drastically throughout the year, you want to be able to show your children and grandchildren one day that there was indeed a point in your life when you were hot and somewhat popular
- Be friendly to everyone you meet; you never know who will be your next door neighbor, doctor, psychiatrist, accountant, or lawyer in ten years
- Push yourself in the classes you take. Although an “easy A” class is tempting, you are in college to prepare yourself for the real world and to actually become a more educated, well-rounded human being
Freshmen, although the work gets tough and there are days with no end in sight, remember that the year is going to fly by and you will be sophomores before you know it giving your own advice to the incoming class of 2017. Therefore, my most valuable piece of advice is to hold on to every second you have as a college freshman, embrace the good times and bad, because there is nothing better than the experiences to come.