My Experience –

            Freshman year in college for me was an interesting time. I made the decision to attend the University of Houston (UH), which was about a 5–6-hour drive from where I had grown up. This wasn’t the most popular choice for the people in my hometown. Most people I knew were either staying put and attending the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley or going to either Texas A&M or UT Austin. In fact, absolutely none of my close friends or people that I talked to on a consistent basis made the decision to go to UH. Thus, one thing I knew for certain was that I was going to have to make new friends.

            In retrospect, that was probably the only thing I knew for certain at that time. I was an 18-year-old moving to a city I had only visited a few times. I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to study. I had no clue what college was going to be like. And I had no clue what sorts of challenges things like living alone, or coming up with my own schedule were going to bring. For all intents and purposes, I was showing up to UH with the idea that I was going to wing it.

            That wasn’t anything new for me though. Growing up, I wasn’t the most diligent or hard-working student. My high school years were spent either trying to find new ways to annoy the teachers or trying to socialize as much as possible. I slept in class, rarely studied for tests, and didn’t even have a backpack for 1-2 years.

            Despite this, I actually did pretty well in terms of grades. This wasn’t because I was extremely intelligent or gifted. Instead, it was because I was extremely good at gaming the system. I knew what homework assignments I had to do, and which ones weren’t so important. I knew what exams I could get away with ‘using my surroundings’, and which exams were more heavily monitored/proctored. And I knew which projects were more heavily weighted and required me to join a better group. In many ways, I made ‘doing as little as possible in high school’ a science and became an expert in the field.

            This isn’t to say that I was a completely dis-interested or lazy individual who only cared about having fun. In actuality, I was extremely at odds with both myself, and my attitude towards school. I genuinely wanted to be both successful and hard-working, but – like many a conflicted teenager – felt as though I didn’t belong in the ‘system’ I was in. I constantly argued with my parents that high school was pointless and viewed my ability to game the system as evidence of this point. So, when high school graduation finally came, I couldn’t wait to put it in the past, and start anew with college.

            Entering UH, my goal was to take a completely different approach towards my education. I wanted to be a good student who studied hard and dedicated himself to his studies. I also wanted to take advantage of the fact that I knew nobody, and aimed to associate myself only with people who shared my mentality in regard to my education and success. On top of that, I had the goal of going to the gym, eating healthy, keeping my dorm clean, and just generally being as productive as possible.

            In terms of academics, this approach worked somewhat. Early on, I was a good student, and I was doing good in all of my classes. (In terms of everything else, however, my approach didn’t seem to work at all. In fact, it didn’t take very long for me to have difficulties in virtually every other aspect of my life.) Despite this, I began to have some difficulties in pretty much every other aspect of my life.

            In terms of my social life, I really struggled to make friends. I was trying to associate myself with people who heavily valued school, or success in general. But, to find out if people had that mentality, I would quiz them whenever I was first talking to them. I would ask people things like ‘what do you think is the best way to spend your free time?’ or ‘what sorts of things do you value or prioritize?’. For whatever reason, people tended to avoid me after that.   

            Interestingly, my productivity also began to take a hit. I was a good student, but, after 2-3 weeks, that was all I had going for me. I couldn’t hold a consistent gym schedule to save my life. Whenever I would eat at the college cafeteria, I found myself consistently favoring cheeseburgers over whatever healthy option they were serving that day. I tried to form ‘healthy & productive’ hobbies, but none of them seemed to keep me occupied for more than 30 minutes. My dorm was a mess; I was a mess. Over time, I found myself feeling just at odds with myself and my behavior as I was in high school. I was frustrated, lost, had little to no energy, and was completely confused as to how I found myself in the same hole that I was in just a few months back. This remained the case for around the first 1-2 months of my freshman year.

            One day, as I was eating in the cafeteria, I saw a guy that I had met at a school event sitting down with two other people. For whatever reason, I decided to walk over and ask him if I could sit with them. It was a typical lunch, and, at the time, I thought nothing of it. However, it turns out that one of the guys who had been sitting with the person I knew would become one of my closest friends.

            By pure random occurrence, I kept bumping into these guys. Over time, we began hanging out on a consistent basis. We met a few other people and formed a relatively tight group of friends.

            I became close with the guy I had alluded to a paragraph ago – his name is Ben – and he’s the one that sort of pushed me to go out to some college parties/clubs. Even though none of those outings solved my issues or made me completely comfortable at UH, they are still some of my fondest memories of freshman year.  

            Unfortunately, the improvement in the friends department was pretty much the only improvement I saw that year. I still struggled to be the productive person I wanted to be. I still struggled to clean and look after myself and my dorm. And I still struggled to figure out what I wanted from both myself, and my college experience. Still, having a good group of friends to rely on definitely helped, and it made my freshman year – at least the first semester – go by pretty quickly.

            My second semester as a freshman was a bit of a blur. Not much had changed in terms of who I wanted to be, nor what I wanted to do. I was still a bit lost and frustrated with myself. I was still a pretty decent student. And I was still hanging out with my group of friends relatively consistently. Besides that, however, I can’t really remember too many important details from this time. This is probably because most of what I remember pertains to how the pandemic cut this semester – and my experience as a second-semester freshman – in half.

            Covid-19 was an incredibly problematic and difficult time for virtually everybody. But one of the things that stand out about it was how lost everyone felt, especially when it was first beginning to spread. The decision to shut down the economy and move everything towards a virtual space was completely unprecedented. Even though we now have many programs and tools that facilitate – and even promote – the use of virtual spaces to conduct work/learn, at that time, we had nothing set up. For students, at least for those at UH, the lack of a clear system for conducting online classes led to a very messy conclusion for the Fall 2020 semester.

            In my specific case, I had classes that met and discussed through Group-me, classes that didn’t meet at all, and classes that met through Microsoft Teams. I had classes that cancelled all the important group projects and replaced them with random online homework assignments. I had classes that took away essays or discussion posts and replaced them with exams. And I had classes that took away most grades all-together and just made things attendance based.

            None of it worked. Professors had no idea how to keep track of who was or wasn’t in class. There was no system that had been implemented for proctoring online exams, so they had no way of preventing students from cheating. And it was virtually impossible to get students to chime in on class discussions because they typically had their cameras off and were on mute. It was a mess.

            I spent the back-half of my second semester of college at home, hardly paying attention to any of my courses. I don’t really remember what I got in most of them, or what sorts of things I had to do to get any of my grades. The University of Houston instituted a policy where you could do pass/fail for that semester so that the grades wouldn’t count towards your GPA, and I took full advantage of that option.

            Unfortunately, that was really how my freshman year of college ended. It was not entirely the experience that most people idealize when they think of ‘the college life’, but hardly anything ever goes the way you think it will. Despite that, I still consider my freshman year an incredibly definitive period of my life, mostly because of what it eventually led to. Moreover, despite how unfortunate Covid-19 was for both me and everybody else at the time, it too ended up being incredibly conducive towards my personal growth later on in my life. With all that being said, I will go ahead and conclude my experience of freshman year here. The specific lessons I learned, including some of the practical, more academic things I haven’t mentioned, can be found below. Moreover, the continuation of my story can be found in the next section: Reflections and Lessons from my Undergraduate Education – Sophomore Year.  

My Advice –

            When it comes to these advice sections, I have decided that I am going to do only the three most important points or lessons from each year. I tend to be longwinded and can write about these things for forever. In order to limit that and to make things more digestible, I will instead focus on three separate, but equally as important, takeaways. My goal is to have a relatively broad scope, and talk about both the academic side of college, along with the day-to-day. With all that out of the way, let’s go ahead and discuss my advice for freshman year of college.

1. Give yourself some time to adjust to the sudden shift in lifestyle and expect to feel incredibly lost

            Depending on your specific situation, freshman year of college will likely be a pretty big shift in terms of lifestyle. Living in a dorm, having to set up your own schedule, having to be away from home, having no one to supervise you, are all just some of the things you may have to get used to. Give yourself some time to become adjusted to all of these changes.

            In terms of classes, workload, and free-time, freshman year will likely be the easiest, and most relaxing year. You’re more than likely taking some core or introductory courses and are probably not yet involved in any sort of clinical observation/research lab/internship that adds extra responsibilities to your schedule (I am aware that a good chunk of students work part, or even full, time so this may not necessarily apply). Because of that, you will probably have a lot of free time.

            There is a common notion that all of this free time should be used to be productive, or do productive things (I, for one, definitely believed that when I was coming in). Even though that is typically good advice – and you should definitely actively strive to be productive – you are very likely not going to be 100% for your first couple of weeks during freshman year. If you are feeling a bit low in energy, stressed, anxious, or are just generally having a tough time, I would advise you to be kind to yourself.

            Hanging out with friends, sitting in bed and watching a movie, going out to parties, or even things like taking long showers can all be just as important/beneficial as any of the numerous ‘productive’ things you can think about. It is important to understand when you are feeling too overwhelmed by life, and to know that, when you’re feeling that way, it may best to just take a step back and do something to help you feel better.

            Somewhat paradoxically, this is going to be especially important freshman year. Yes, freshman year will likely have the most free-time compared to any other year; and yes, this means it should be the easiest on you. However, freshman year will also probably be the most lost you will ever feel in relation to both yourself, and your future.

            One of the most common experiences I heard from people at my university was that they left high school believing they wanted to study/be one thing, but then arrived at the university and realized they didn’t like that thing at all. Knowing what you want to do, or figuring out what to study, is one of the most difficult decisions you will have to make at college. In my opinion, when it comes to about 80-85% of freshman, they simply just do not have enough information to make that decision yet. That is okay! Pick something that feels interesting, explore that path, and see where it takes you. Things will work themselves out. In the meantime, however, expect to feel lost, and expect that this feeling, combined with all the other changes going on freshman year, will require a bit of adjustment to get used to.

2. Even freshman year courses will likely be a big step-up in comparison to what you were taking in high school.

            College truly is nothing like high school. The skill set and attitude that is required to do extremely well in all of your courses is nothing like what you needed only one year prior. This isn’t to say that college courses are extremely difficult, or that you need to be a genius to do well. However, if you don’t know what you’re getting into, and even if you do, you will likely get punched in the mouth a few times before you get the hang of it.

            When it comes to being a freshman, I feel as though the best academic advice I could give is to take advantage of your university or college’s resources. Pretty much every university I have heard of has some sort of resource to help students succeed in their classes. This can include tutoring, office hours, textbooks, extra materials/supplemental materials, or just the actual class time. Not all of these will be useful to any one person, but they are all worth taking a look at, especially if you are struggling.

            There are two reasons I recommend this primarily for freshman. The first is that freshman very likely do not fully know how to study, nor what strategies and techniques work best in order for them to learn. And the second is that a lot of freshman are likely going to be behind in certain skills that are essential for success in college. These extra resources and tools universities provide can help out with both of these problems. I will explain how, utilizing my own experience, for each of these in turn.  

            As I mentioned when talking about my story, I got through high school by mostly gimmicking the system. I never really had to learn how to study. Even when I did study, it was mostly last second cramming through flashcards that someone else in the class had made. I also had no idea how important knowing how to study actually was. I honestly believed that, whenever I needed to learn, I would just kind of go to class, hear the professor out a bit, and everything would work itself out from there.  

            That was until I stumbled upon Introduction to Biological Sciences 1 (Bio 1). You know how I mentioned that college courses were a step-up from high school? This is especially the case when it comes to STEM courses. The first couple of weeks in Bio 1 were overwhelming to say the least. I felt as though there was just simply too much information I had to learn, and just going to class and hearing the professor wasn’t really going to cut it.

            The problem was, I didn’t know what I had to do to learn all this information. I didn’t do well in my first quiz, and I remember feeling pretty anxious in relation to the first exam. At the time, everyone kept telling me the best thing to do was write down notes in class, then to review them later through flashcards or something similar. But that didn’t work at all. I felt as though writing notes only prevented me from hearing the professor, and they were often so scattered and unorganized that reviewing them was pointless.

            Eventually, I decided to try something different. I went to the bookstore and purchased a hard copy of the textbook. I decided to begin reading whatever chapter we were going over in class prior to actually showing up. In class, I would focus only on the professor and not write any notes. Then, whenever it was getting close to exam day, I would open a word document and summarize everything I remembered from both the textbook and from class. If there was something I didn’t remember, I would go back through the textbook to refresh myself.

            This really worked for me. In fact, I would later realize that, for most courses, all I really needed was the textbook and summary component of this strategy. Contrary to most conventional advice, I didn’t go to most of my classes throughout my time at college, and, instead, I would spend class-time simply reading whatever chapter was assigned for that day. For courses that were particularly tricky, I would then supplement that by watching recorded lectures, or re-shuffle my schedule around so I can use both the textbook and the in-person class.

            The importance of this entire story is that one of the most important things you will have to do as a student is figure out what works best for you, and what things you need to do for you to be successful in your courses. To do so, explore all the options and resources available to you, even if they aren’t things that are ‘conventionally’ used. You may find that something like tutoring makes understanding a subject so much easier, and you will save a lot of time by utilizing it instead of trying to do what everyone else is doing.

            The second reason I would recommend freshman take advantage of their university’s resources is that they may be behind in an area that is essential to their success in college, and they will have to use these resources so they can catch back up. There are specific skills you will see time and time again in each of your classes that you will need to become proficient in. Things like writing, presenting, taking a timed exam, studying, or simply organizing your time will be present in some form throughout most of your courses. You were supposed to learn and practice most of these things throughout high school, but, if you’re anything like me, you didn’t put in the time, and are now probably behind all of your other peers in one, or many, of these. The extra resources universities offer can really help with this problem.

            In my case, I was pretty bad at writing when I first entered college (which is ironic considering how much I enjoy writing nowadays). In fact, I received the lowest score out of anyone in my class for the first essay submitted within my English course. At the time, I was a bit in shock about that fact, and I decided to go to my professor’s office hours so that I could ask him about my essay.

            Talking to him really helped me understand just how little I truly knew about writing. I didn’t understand grammar, I was bad at putting my ideas together, and my essays tended to lack flow and continuity. The great thing about this was he also explained to me how I could improve all of this, and what things I should do to get better. He told me about some books I could read, some strategies I could implement, and what steps I could take to make my writing just a little bit better every single day.

            I took his advice, and, slowly, my writing got better little by little. Nowadays, I consider writing to be my strong suit, and I tend to prefer it whenever I want to express myself. However, that would never have happened if I hadn’t decided to take advantage of my university’s resources and go to my professor’s office hours.

            I want to make a quick aside that is somewhat related to this point before concluding this section. Professors are often the most valuable resource a student can have at the university. While it is true that some professors are hard to get in contact with or don’t really pay too much attention to their students’ struggles, the grand majority are very understanding and can prove incredibly useful. I would recommend office hours as the first resource to check out if you are struggling in a class. The advice that I received the times I went was invaluable, and it really allowed me to develop as a student. 

3. A good group of friends will take you a long way, but you may need to put yourself out there to find them.

            There is a reason that a lot of people think about the social aspect of university life when they hear someone mention ‘the college experience’. As a student, especially if you live on campus, you spend virtually all your time with your friends. You study together, you go out together, you may even have some classes together. This is, for me, one of the most fun parts about college, and its incredible how close you can get to people when you spend that much time with them.

            That being said, getting to a point where you have a stable group of friends to hang out with on a consistent basis can be a bit tricky. Depending on who you are as a person, and whether you know people at that college prior to going, it can be a real struggle to know where to even begin. In my opinion, the best thing to do to meet new people is to simply put yourself out there.

            College is a bit different than high school in that you probably won’t meet many people within your actual classes. Most of my classrooms were these giant auditoriums that sat 300 or so people. This was a pretty impersonal setting, and most people were only there with the intention of paying attention to the professor, taking their notes, and getting out as quickly as possible. I am not saying you can’t, or won’t, meet anybody in this sort of setting, but I can tell you that I rarely did.

            However, what college loses within the classroom it gains through a multitude of events and festivities it sets up on a consistent basis. At least within the University of Houston, there was always a glow party, a crawfish festival, a flea market, or some other neat mini celebration that students could go to. Even though these things often sounded cheesy, or maybe even a bit uninteresting, I feel as though they are perfect for freshman who don’t know anybody.

            The thing about college, and really life in general, is that meeting people is such a random experience. Pretty much none of the people I met throughout my time as an undergraduate were people I expected to meet. It was almost always a random encounter in a cafeteria line, seeing someone I interacted with in class or at the recreation center and striking up a conversation, or someone who just began speaking to me because they felt I looked approachable. However, despite how random and unplanned most of these occurrences were, there was one thing that was common amongst all of them: I was in a social place and was willing to socialize.

            It is my belief that life will present you with numerous random opportunities in order to grow, succeed, get a job, meet people, etc. But it will only do this if you are both present and willing to take advantage of said opportunities. In regard to socializing, you will never meet anybody while you are locked in your room, and you will never meet anybody while you turn away from everyone who tries to talk to you. If you are interested in meeting new people, you have to go to places where people socialize – literally, just go.

            I understand that there are people out there who view themselves as ‘unsocial’, or that they consider themselves to be ‘bad at talking to people’ (by the way, if you aren’t interested in making friends, that’s fine. There is no right way to live, and if you feel that way, go ahead and disregard all of my advice). But it is my belief that even the most ‘unsocial’ people can find themselves a good group of friends as long as they keep looking for them.

            [Also, as an aside, I quickly wanted to point something out: you’re more than likely not as bad at talking to people as you think. As I mentioned, during my freshman year, I really struggled to make friends. There was a point in time where I thought I was just not built to be around people. I felt weird, insecure, and as though I didn’t belong. It turns out, I was wrong about all of this, and I was just being shy. It may be rough at first, but socializing is a skill, and the more you talk to people, the better you will get at it.]

            This is also why I mentioned earlier that, if you’re a freshman (or just new to a university) and are having some trouble finding friends, go to the school festivities. I don’t guarantee that you will meet someone right away, but, if you go to enough of them, you probably will. The reason for this is that there will be a lot of people there who are in the same boat as you are. These festivities, especially the ones that are early on in the year, are literally designed to help newcomers meet other people. If I could go back in time and re-start freshman year, this is definitely something I would’ve taken advantage of.   

            With all that being said I reiterate that finding a solid group of friends within your university can be incredibly helpful. Moreover, it is my belief that anybody can find this. For some, it may take a little longer than others, but, if they continue to put themselves out there, one day, likely for random/unexpected reasons, they will meet people they get along with. What is most important is to keep trying, and to keep looking.