Who knows, your freshman year in college might just be the beginning of an incredible journey.
There is nothing wrong with having a bout of nervousness about your freshman year in college. The performance, success, and failures that you faced in high school, won’t matter anymore, freshman year is the beginning of a whole new chapter in your life. In fact, you might have to experience an array of changes in your life as you take this next step where you will have to make a number of critical decisions for you, decisions that will guide your present as well as future life. So, it’s absolutely normal to be nervous as it indeed is a big change.
Here are some tips that will help you survive your freshman year in college :
- You need to accept and acknowledge the change
Okay, now it’s time for you to understand and accept that your life is going to change drastically!
The nervousness about leaving your family, your friends, the place you grew up at and that comfort zone in your current life is all going to be history very soon. You need not stress yourself with this change and the potential pitfalls you might face along the way. Rather approach this as the beginning of a new life and an incredible journey with a lot of new experiences, people, and success.
You might have to face some pitfalls but see the upside of it, the lessons you will learn about life will help in your transformation into a self-dependent person. So, be ready to acknowledge the forthcoming change in your life.
- Know about your roommates
You need to blend in.
The people with whom you are going to live for the next 3 or 4 years of your life can significantly affect your life. There are high chances that they might be in the same emotional state as yours and are nervous about the sudden changes. You are going to spend a lot of time with them so it’s important that you get to know them, more importantly, understand their perspective and their lifestyle. Most colleges share their information like email addresses, social media contacts etc. in advance of your academic year, so you can get to know each other prior to the beginning of the session.
- Your campus life is extremely important
You need to get yourself involved in some campus activities, it might be a college club, a support group, or even a sports team. This way you will get to know about and meet like-minded people. Pick some new skills and be acquainted with your new environment. This will help you overcome the feeling of not belonging and homesickness.
- Be organized
In your prior life, you had the privilege of a guardian to pick up after you, but once you start your freshman year in college, you are all on your own. How you keep your surrounding is going to affect your lifestyle in more ways than you can imagine. If you want to be organized, punctual and focussed then you need to live in clutter-free room.
Some important tips for your freshman year in college :
- Distribute the chores equally among all roommates and make sure everyone is doing their part in keeping the room clean and organized.
- Organize your books and clothes tidily.
- Get yourself a personal organizer, a mobile app perhaps. This will help you keep track of your daily schedule and important events like a student body meeting, an assignment date or a class that you can’t afford to miss.
- Find yourself a place where you can study. It might be your college library or a peaceful corner of your campus, just ensure that nobody disturbs you during your study hours.
- Meet your professors
They might be weird, challenging, intimidating, friendly or helpful. But you can only guess unless you get to know them personally.
The office hours of your professors are intended to serve the students for mentoring; therefore, you can interact and convey your needs to your professors without any hesitation. This will allow you to get to know about them and surely help in later stages of the college If you ever got stuck in a problem.
So, a final piece of advice, try to strike a balance between yourself and the new life waiting for you and turn this new chapter of life into an incredible journey.
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