What I Learned From My Freshman Year

Having just completed my freshman year at UCF, I thought it would be a good idea to start my sophomore year off by giving my Her Campus readers (especially incoming freshmen!) a list of some important things that I learned last year!  But first, I would like to give you all a summary of my first year as a Knight:

I started my freshman year as a Summer B student. I was eager to be “living on my own”, get away from my parents, and get out of Boca Raton, FL. My first Monday at UCF, my suitemates and I went to a paint party at a local bar, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had so far. I had loads of fun, and it was a great way to start off my college experience. However, once Fall rolled along, I found myself getting depressed. I didn’t really do anything besides go to class, and I didn’t have that many friends. I started sleeping until 4 or 5 in the afternoon and skipping more and more of my classes. Thankfully, I still did well and found a way out of my rut!
 
I knew I had to make some changes in order to make myself happy and enjoy college, so I started doing things! I went to the Homecoming concert and Comedy Knight with some friends from summer, and I had a lot of fun! I also started going to the gym more. Before I knew it, Fall was over and it was winter break! Winter break came and went (I worked the whole time), and it was a new year and a new semester: Spring. I was still having some emotional rollercoaster rides, but, for the most part, things were turning around. I started going to the gym with one of my friends (“Gym buddies”), and we ended up becoming much better friends and started hanging out more! This led to me hanging out with other mutual friends and going out to parties and clubs a little bit more often, too.
 
In February, I was told about Her Campus. I had just made the decision–after questioning my major and what I wanted to do in life–that I wanted to someday work for a magazine. So when I heard about Her Campus and how they were looking to expand, I knew I had to make a move. I also knew that I definitely needed to get involved in something in order to make myself feel productive and happy. I applied for a position as either a writer or a publicity and events intern, and I actually got to do both! For the rest of Spring I was busy doing Her Campus activities, hanging out with friends, and going to class; I must say, things turned out pretty well. Although, I have to admit, I was glad to be going home for the summer.

Now that you have a general idea about my first year at UCF, you might be able to understand a little bit better where I got my “lessons” learned. My first year was not easy, but I pulled through. Here are some important, and some trivial, lessons that I learned from my freshman year:

·         Always bring an umbrella with you. It might be sunny when you leave, and it might not have rained for weeks, but trust me. There have been too many times where I walked out of my dorm, only to turn around and go right back to grab my umbrella because it was raining. Or that one time when I walked out of the Visual Arts Building and it was pouring – and of course I hadn’t brought my umbrella. Better to be safe than sorry!

·         Use Post-its! At the beginning of summer, I forgot to do one of my online homework assignments that was due at 11:59 PM. That zero turned out to be the difference between a B+ and an A-. In Spring, I completely forgot to take a test that was online, and then the next week I forgot to take a quiz in that same class (thankfully, the professor let me make up the test). My point is, use Post-its everywhere! Especially if you have online work. You may not think you will forget, but you never know – I am not usually the type of person to just forget to take a test! Using Post-its can literally save your grade!
 
·         Don’t be “that girl”. I cannot tell you how many times I have watched drunken girls make fools of themselves in front of their friends, cute guys, and complete strangers. It’s NOT cool to drink and drink and drink until you get so wasted that you start crying and need to be carried home. Nobody likes to take care of the sloppy, drunk girl. I’m not telling you not to get hammered, but just know your limits and try to somewhat control your drinking and yourself. Oh, and don’t be “that girl” by hooking up with every guy under the sun AND his friends. Guys talk, and everyone else talks, too. And they usually don’t have nice things to say.

·         You don’t need to go out every weekend, multiple times a weekend. I kid you not, I know people who have gone out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then go to happy hour on Sunday. And they were freshmen. Why? We have four years to party and go out! You don’t need to go out Friday AND Saturday every weekend. Space it out! Yes, college is the time to party, but first and foremost, college is the time to learn, and your grades will suffer if you go out all the time.
 
·         You can have a 3-day weekend, every weekend. One of the best things about college? We get to make our own schedules! Don’t like waking up until 1 PM? That’s fine! You can start your day at 2 or 3. You can also, like I did, only take class Monday through Thursday. Unless you have to take a class that is definitely on Friday and there is nothing you can do to avoid it, you can easily make it so you only have classes four days a week. This is amazing for sleeping in, having more time to do your work/studying, recuperating from parties, and making weekend trips home!

·         Your friends are important. Friends are even more important in college than they were in high school. In college, the friendships that you make have a very good chance of lasting beyond college. You need good friends who you can trust and have amazing times with. If you have a significant other, don’t be attached at the hip! Make sure you still keep in contact with your friends, because they are the ones who will still be there for you even when that boyfriend isn’t.
 
·         Sleep prevails. I don’t know about you, but I had to be at high school at 7:30 in the morning. I never went to bed before midnight, either. So, needless to say, I was extremely sleep-deprived. In college, I have found that I can sleep a full 10 or 11 hours, and anything less than 9 hours makes me feel like crap. This may not be the case for everyone, but prepare to looooove sleeping! And thankfully, college allows for us to be able to work our classes around our sleep schedule.

·         Respect your roommates.I was lucky enough to become friends with my suitemates over the summer (I was already friends with my roommate), but I was not so lucky for Fall/Spring. I roomed with one of my good friends from high school, and we both could not stand our suitemates. They would have friends over all the time (I’m not exaggerating), talking, pregaming, crying, singing, going out, sleeping over – it was a constant annoyance. They would go out in the middle of the week (school night), come back at 4 in the morning, drunk, with their friends, and act like they were in the middle of the woods somewhere where nobody could hear them. They didn’t even try to be quiet. So my advice to you is to just respect the fact that there is someone living next door to you, and the walls are paper-thin. Your neighbors can hear everything you are saying and are probably trying to sleep half of the time. The least you can do is make an attempt to whisper, and maybe not bring your friends back to your room every time you all go out.
 
Everybody has their own unique college experiences and their own obstacles that they have to surpass. However, I think that there are quite a few things that us college students all experience in common. These are some of the little (and bigger) things that I picked up during my first year as a college student, and I hope that you all can learn from, or identify with, at least a couple of them!