I scoured the web for articles about what it was like to be a college athlete before I came to Boston University. Most of them said the same thing; it’s hard and you’ll be busy. While these things may have been true, there was so much more I wanted to know: What was it like living with someone on the team? Does the team go out? What exactly is expected of me? How hard are the workouts actually going to be? How much time am I going to have? None of the articles I read answered any of these.
So, I’ve learned a lot now that I have been at school for a couple of weeks and boy has it been a shock. The first is that living with your teammate is great. I live on a floor that has all of the freshmen on my team on it. This immediately gave me a sense of community. Many freshmen feel alone during the first few weeks because, let’s face it, making friends is hard. One of the best parts of being on a team is that you have an immediate family that will do anything for you.
Secondly, going out is where team bonding happens. If there is one thing to do your first few weekends here it's going to the parties. You may not like parties a whole ton like me, or you may love them. But either way, this is where you’ll make a lot of connections with your older teammates and other athletes in general. It’s totally fine to stay in on a Saturday night, but try going out at least a couple of times. It may surprise you how much fun you have.
As an athlete, you have a lot more expectations from everyone around you. You are required to go through all these steps. You have to go through special athlete orientation. You have to go to mandatory study hall hours. You have to meet with your adviser once a week, whereas other students might see their adviser once a semester. You are expected to perform at the highest level and so much more. This is incredibly overwhelming to deal with on top of all the school work you get.
Speaking of school work, transitioning from high school is hard. In college classes, you are much more on your own. You will have a lot of reading and maybe a test or essay or two but that's it. It is incredibly important to keep up with the reading, otherwise, you will be screwed. The hard thing about being an athlete is time management. Practices are longer and you don’t have that free time after school. You’re going to feel tired and unmotivated a lot of the time.
Practice is hard. At your high school, you were probably the star of your team, coach’s favorite. Here, everyone was that person. You are a little fish in a big pond. It is hard to adjust to everyone being so good. It will humble you. On top of this, practices are longer. You will have lifting on top of your regular practice. Your body is going to be sore and tired for a month or two before it gets used to the stress on it.
All of this may sound overwhelming, but at the end of the day, you will always be able to regard yourself as a college athlete. This is something that very few people will ever experience. You are part of a community. You have a lifelong family and there is nothing more worth it. The first month of freshmen year may be overwhelming and scary but it gets so much better.
