Within the brick buildings of 300 Pompton Road in Wayne New Jersey, you will tackle four years of academic stress, changing friendships, and the will power to push forward. It won't be a perfect journey, but it will be yours and I encourage you to make the best of it. William Paterson University will never be the school that is featured in Victoria's Secret's college collection and it will never be in the same ranks as Harvard or Princeton. When people ask you what university you attend during holiday parties, you'll tell them "William Paterson" and they might reply with something along the lines of "where is that" or "my kid goes to Montclair State." In moments where you might feel small due to the false perception people have of this phenomenal institution, remember that we are not second best and that it is you who has to make the best of what William Paterson offers.

As a senior at William Paterson with two previous schools on her resume, I had not always seen William Paterson as a university of opportunity with vast resources; I had not known it was a school that leaves each of its students with the drive to succeed beyond the orange banners. Whether you are an incoming freshman or a transfer student who is already in their third year, understand that William Paterson can offer you so much more than the average college experience if you have the courage to take it. When I first came to William Paterson I was as shy as any new student would be; it was not until I was encouraged to take part in certain activities that I became very active on campus, and my experience was completely changed. Being a commuter, I had to travel about thirty minutes to get to campus, but I started to come to campus even when I didn't have class because I wanted to be there.

There are so many ways that you can motivate yourself to be an active student on campus, but the easiest way to be a more engaged student is to become part of a club or organization on campus. You can do this by either joining a sorority or by requesting membership into an on-campus club. On your WPConnect, there is a club section where you can peruse the variety of clubs, organizations, and sororities offered at William Paterson. You are also given the option to message the leaders to request more information so that you can make a decision about what best suits you. During each semester, the university holds two events that have proved to be very helpful for students and they are the Greek life fair and the club fair ,which usually occur at the beginning of the semester.

In addition to learning more about clubs and sororities, it would be in your best interest to volunteer for the community service activities offered at William Paterson. Not only will you have community service on your resume for future employers to look proudly upon, but you will also make amazing friends during the process and help a community in need. William Paterson prides itself on its community service and civic engagement involvement as its students are very eager to assist local and nearby communities. Just to show you how prevalent civic engagement is on our campus—students contributed more than 4,000 hours of community service during the fall 2015 semester alone.

If you don't have time to be involved in civic engagement or to become part of an organization on campus, you can always resort to simpler ways of becoming more involved on campus by forming a study group with classmates on campus or attending common hour events. You can meet up at least once a week and discuss homework, notes, and topics from your class. I have found that meeting with classmates outside of class, even for just an hour a week, can help form strong friendships and improve your academic experience. After your study session, you can head on over to Zanfino plaza for whatever common hour event they are holding. Common hour events traditionally happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but if you do not have classes on those days, clubs and organizations usually have their events separate from Campus Activities almost every day of the week. That is what is so amazing about this university: there is always something happening.

Ultimately, creating a wonderful experience at William Paterson—or any university—is truly up to you and how involved you want to be. If you don't put in the effort to become part of the school, you will feel like an outsider and it will not be the best that it can be. Take what William Paterson offers and don't take a second of it for granted because it will produce some of the greatest memories of your life.