Dear Future TWAMPs,

Welcome to the Tribe! We’re so happy to have you here. I’m sure you’ll make a great contribution to our family, and I can’t wait to experience all of your wonderful talents and interesting personalities. Before you start the amazing journey that is the next four years of your life, I’ve got some advice for you.

First of all, pick your roommates wisely. Utilize the Facebook group, and find someone who has a similar living style as you. Some questions you can ask potential roommates: do you like to keep the room hot or cold? Are you a morning person or an evening person? What are your interests? Are you generally pretty clean or pretty messy? William & Mary’s roommate questionnaire has only 4 questions, so don’t rely on that to find a roommate. Facebook is a great resource to find someone you’ll enjoy living with.

On the subject of roommates: choose your housing wisely. While you can’t actually decide what building you live in, you do get to decide whether you’d like a big dorm or a small dorm. There are perks to both - the large ones have air conditioning, but the small ones allow you to get really close to the people on your hall - but you’ll have to decide which one you want. Choose wisely, freshmen.

Once you get to college, make sure to get involved. Joining clubs and other organizations is probably the best way to make new friends, especially upperclassmen with cars. In college (and especially at W&M) there’s a club for just about everything you can imagine, so there are endless opportunities to meet new people. Don’t get too involved, though; join a couple things, but not everything, because you need to leave some time for classes and schoolwork (and time to just relax a little bit).

The most important advice I can give to you about college is to have fun. There’s so much to love in college, and sure, sometimes it can be difficult, and sometimes it can be stressful, but it’s also the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do. There are so many fun things to do in Williamsburg and on campus, and you won’t get to enjoy them if you’re always doing work. Carve out some time every day, or at least every week, to do something fun. Get dinner with friends. Watch a couple episodes of your favorite show on Netflix. Go to ladies’ night at the Crust and get a skillet cookie. Go pet the therapy dogs in the library. Take a nap. The possibilities are endless. Focus on schoolwork, but also focus on you: focus on what you need to succeed, and what you need to do to blow off some steam after a long day or a long week. I promise, this is important.

And lastly, don’t wish away your senior year. I know it seems like there’s a lot of time left, but trust me, it goes quickly. Everybody seems in such a hurry to grow up and get to college, but they shouldn’t be. Time flies, in high school and especially in college. So enjoy the rest of your senior year, because it’ll be over before you know it.

See you in August, new Tribe members. I can't wait to get to know you.

Sincerely,