Dear incoming freshmen,
I hope you are getting excited about your new journey, one that will invest a lot in you, that is, if you invest in it. Now, I am not talking in a literal sense of investing money, although you do indeed give a lot of your Benjamin’s to the university system. I am talking about the wonderful nature of extracurricular activities, or in a more general sense, getting involved.
When I entered my freshman year of college, like any, I told myself that I was going to solely focus on academics because getting educated was the whole point of why I was in college. After several student involvement fairs, all of which I was forced to go to, I put my name on a few info sheets here and there, but in the end decided I should only join one of these organizations because of time. I went the first few meetings for it and saw myself truly enjoying my time spent with these people. I thought to myself, hmm, I wonder what would happen if I began to join more organizations. Would my grades drop? Would I meet more friends?
A few weeks later an opportunity arose. My residence hall (pro tip: dorms are supposed to be called residence halls) was having elections for hall council. Hall Council is run through Residence Hall Association (RHA), the largest student organization in the nation, and is presided at every university, whether you know it or not. Anyways, I was planning on running, just wasn’t sure what I wanted to run for. I was originally thinking treasurer, as I thought that was the least time consuming and also wasn’t sure if I would be able to handle the duties for president. Well, my Residence Assistants’ (RAs) and Residence Director (RD) were motivating and encouraging me to run for president, so I did, and with comedic signs such as a picture of Raven Baxter from That’s So Raven saying “I had a vision that you voted Logan Taylor for hall council president” or a picture of Taylor Swift saying “If you don’t vote Logan Taylor for hall council president, you’ll leave teardrops on my guitar,” I, according to my RA, won by a landslide.
Being in hall council opened so many doors for me and showed me that I don’t have to be locked to my desk 24/7. It surrounded me with other student leaders who I grew to call my friends and allowed me the opportunity to essentially be a part of the RA staff, without having to work the desk or fill out paperwork. What I am most proud of is that being in hall council helped me get an RA job of my own for the following academic year.
Throughout the course of the year, I ended up joining several other organizations, all of which helped me grow as a person, even being recruited by an up and coming fraternity to be a founding father of it and winning the Outstanding Student Leader of the Year award through RHA.
So, my advice to you is don’t be afraid to get involved. Pretty quickly you’ll discover how much free time you truly have in college. As much as you can study non-stop, that doesn’t help you feel fulfilled. After all, I got a 4.0 taking 15 hours while being in three organizations and two fraternities. You will meet so many people, a lot of which become really good friends. which makes the adjustment to college a whole lot easier, and before you know it, you will never want to come back home.
