The beginning of the school year is quickly approaching, and with that, there are going to be at least a million articles coming out offering well-intentioned advice to incoming college freshman. College is an enormous transition, so you’re going to read every single one of these articles because let’s face it, you need all the help you can get.
You’ll soon learn that it is common in academia to establish one’s credibility before a presentation or argument. Therefore, let me establish: I’m about to enter my senior year at a pretty challenging school. I get good grades, do too many extracurricular activities, have time to hang out with my sorority sisters and even get to sleep at night! And I, your college spirit guardian, am here to divulge the true secrets to success in college:
1. Buy as few textbooks as possible from your school’s actual bookstore.
I don’t know why, but most school bookstores are a scam. I’m just not paying $200 for a textbook I’ll crack open maybe three times. Your new best friends for textbooks are Amazon, Ebay and Chegg. You can get free Amazon Prime for six months with a college email address, and if literally anyone you know has Amazon Prime, it is worth it to beg them to let you use it to order books. You will save hundreds of dollars, no exaggeration.
By the way, always rent or buy used when books you can. There is no point to buying brand new books. You’re probably just going to end up throwing them out the library window in frustration anyway.
2. Attend most of the freshman activities, but if there’s something you really don’t want to do, no one will notice if you skip.
Your school’s freshman welcome board doesn’t spend all that time planning these activities to make you feel uncomfortable, although you likely will. That’s OK. It’s worth it to meet even a few friendly faces to get you through the first few weeks until you make your real friends.
At the same time, there’s going to be some activities on your schedule to which you say, “Absolutely not.” Our school does a freshman Olympics event where everyone has to do physical activity in front of everyone else, and you can bet my husky behind took a nap instead and joined my roommate’s group for dinner later. No one noticed. I wish someone had told me that there’s actually no penalty to skipping these things.
3. Try different activities than you did in high school.
In high school, I was queen of the band geeks, the drum major herself and in the show choir and other artsy and nerdy stuff. I decided just before freshman year that I wanted to clear my plate and focus on school and decided not to continue to do band. Now, I’m the copy chief for my college’s newspaper, an RA and in a ministry group, among other activities. Most surprisingly, I’m in a sorority. Those are things I never saw myself doing in high school, but I’m so glad I opened myself up to new activities. I’m not saying that you should give up something you love for grades, but if you’re tired of an activity, don’t force yourself to do it just because it’s what you know.
4. Don’t start off with too much on your plate.
Although I strongly believe that extracurricular activities are where you will have some of your most rewarding moments of college, it’s not wrong to start off freshman year with absolutely nothing to focus on except schoolwork. As I said at the beginning, college is a huge adjustment from high school. I’ve seen too many freshmen drown themselves because they think they have to be a big shot on campus from day one. You’re at school to learn first, so it is perfectly acceptable to focus on that until you get used to the routine of college. Trust me, by your senior year, you’ll end up in so many activities you’ll be asking yourself how it even happened. Take your time.
5. It’s so nice to have free gym access, so don’t be scared to use it.
There is no other time in your life where you can go to a nice gym as much as you want for free (at least, included in tuition). Use that gift! Do not succumb to gym-timidation. No matter who you are, you have as much a right to be in the gym as the lunkheads who do one rep on a machine and then take a lap with a smug look on their face. Exercise is so good for clearing your head and releasing endorphins; don’t let that opportunity go to waste just because you’ve never been in a gym before.
6. If you hate your major, now is the time to change.
It is possible that you will finish your first semester and realize that you don’t care about a single thing you learned so far. This is especially the case if you came into college with a major that you felt pressured into joining. Listen, it’s going to be a tremendously long four years if you hate every class you take. Take some interesting electives and find something you like. Talk to your adviser and your career services office. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you will still be able to graduate on time if you change your major freshman year since the classes from your old major will simply fill your elective credits instead.
Also, it’s OK to go in undecided. Most of your freshman classes will be general classes anyway, especially if you go to a liberal arts school. Again, don’t be pressured into choosing a major you’re uncomfortable with just to shut people up. Do something you enjoy.
7. Just go to sleep.
It’s 3 a.m. and you have been cramming since 3 p.m. for a major test you have in six hours. Take it from an honor student: just go to bed. There is nothing you can learn after 3 a.m. Your brain needs sleep to function, and you will do so much better on your test with a clear head.
Another tip is to get up a little early to briefly review the material the hour before you take your test, if possible, so it is fresh in your mind.
8. Use. A. Planner.
I don’t think there is a successful person in the world who doesn’t have some type of organized schedule. Buy yourself a simple planner and write down every assignment from your syllabi, every meeting and every event you want to attend. Trust me, it is worth the time it takes to write down your academic schedule to avoid missing an assignment because “you forgot.” Professors are merciful, but still, you don’t want to look stupid. By senior year, your planner will become second only to your Bible.
9. Try rush.
One of my biggest goofs of freshman year was not trying any rush events even though both of my roommates rushed and joined the same sorority (which I ended up joining the next year). I go to a small private school that doesn’t have national sororities, only ones that are unique to our campus, so it is a different experience than most schools. However, I think the bond one can experience in a Greek group is worth attending at least one rush event. Joining a sorority was the last thing I ever saw myself doing before I came to college, and now it is the best part of my experience. Keep an open mind.
10. Stay in touch with friends from home, but enjoy your new ones.
Living with people in a dormitory or apartment builds a whole new type of friendship than you ever experienced in high school where you went back to your own home each day after school. You’re probably going to make a new best friend at college, and that’s a good thing. At the same time, your high school friends have known you since your awkward phase, and that’s a special type of friendship. Don’t let them go, and don’t feel guilty for making new friends. They don’t have to be in competition with each other.
11. Take it seriously, but serious stress can wait until junior year.
There will always be those freshmen who are only at school because their dad is paying for it and they have nothing better to do. They treat college like an extremely expensive ticket to party, and they flunk out by May. Don’t be that person. No matter how or why you’re at college, someone is paying for you to be there, so you might as well try your very best.
At the same time, there will always be the overachiever freshmen who are level-10 stressed at all times for no reason. My bio-major roommate was often so stressed she couldn’t even eat, and now she’s in the biology honorary and the president of our sorority (shoutout to you, Syd!). You will figure out college, and freshman year is the time to enjoy your new experiences. Junior year is the time to start seriously thinking about your future. You have time!
12. Know when to take the L.
It is simply not possible to give 100 percent of yourself every single hour of the day. There will be times when you just have to take a calculated loss. The important thing is knowing when it’s ok to give up. Here’s an example: if you have an insane week that includes a test with lots of points available in a class in which you already have an A and a heavily-weighted paper for a class that you’re struggling with, it’s ok to glance over your notes for the test and spend most of your time writing that paper. Your sanity always comes before your grades.
College is exciting and fantastic and grueling and hard. No one is the perfect student, but be encouraged; you can actually get good grades, have friends and sleep.
