by Kym Byrnes
The first year of college can be terrifying and awesome at the same time.
Will the new roommate be as cool in person as she is via text? Will classes be impossibly hard?
Will it be hard to make friends? Will it be hard to find my advisor’s office, let alone my first class?
The questions, and sometimes anxieties, increase as the first week of college draws near.
Perhaps some advice from students and parents who have walked the college walk will help. Their advice, coupled with advice from some of the administrators who have welcomed trepid first-year students for years, will make the transition a little easier.
Here is what they have to say:
“Your freshman year will be the best time and the worst time of your life,” Salisbury student Taylor Hall said.
According to Hall, who graduated from Westminster High School in 2014, academics aren’t necessarily easier or harder than in high school, it’s just a different magnitude of learning because of the format of the classes. She said class difficulty depends on the instructor, and that for some classes the entire semester grade is based on two tests and an essay.
Studying to be a nurse, Hall suggested that students start building good study habits as early as possible.
“If you’re a bad test taker, like I was, find out how to be a good one,” Hall said. “You make the decision of whether to study or not, so get used to setting aside time to study or read.”
And the roller coaster extends beyond academics.
“The ‘Freshman 15’ is a real thing and it’s OK,” Hall said, referencing the 10-15 pounds sometimes gained by college students in their first year as they are adopting new eating habits. “I didn’t think it would happen to me, but it did. Just don’t get in the habit of eating all the time and eating really late.”
For Century High School graduate Rebecca Debinski, her freshman year at McDaniel College was spent trying to balance her academic work with her social life and extracurricular activities. She said that since she took challenging AP classes her senior year in high school, her freshman college classes didn’t seem overly difficult. It was the time management that proved to be more difficult.
“You have to find that balance, which is especially hard because you’re living with friends and there are always opportunities to go hang out with them,” Debinski said. “In high school, you didn’t live with friends so it wasn’t as easy to get distracted or put your homework aside to go hang out spontaneously.”
Another piece of advice Debinski offers for those preparing for their freshman year is to find out what reading they will have to do for classes in the fall and get a head start before the semester begins.
Living arrangements can be another source of anxiety. Many students worry about moving away from home and living with roommates in dorms.
Josh Tabak, a Gerstell Academy graduate now attending Wake Forest University, said transitioning to dorms and roommates “took some getting used to.”
“It’s weird getting used to living on your own,” Tabak said. “I was randomly assigned a roommate, and this is a person you spend a lot of time with. You are living on a hall with a bunch of people you’ve never met before in close living conditions.”
The best thing an incoming freshman can do, according to Tabak, is to keep an open mind and explore all the opportunities the campus offers. Tabak became the equipment manager for the Wake Forest football team and said even though it was time and work intensive, traveling around the country with the team was an amazing experience.
“Go in with an open mind. There are a lot of people and clubs and classes that you’ve never been exposed to so it’s good to try a lot of things at first and figure it out from there, don’t just do the same things you did in high school,” Tabak advised.
Tabak became the football team’s equipment manager, Hall joined a sorority and is on the sailing team and Debinski is involved in the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.
Debinski said these activities are important.
“When I was in high school someone told me ‘you don’t want to ride the bus home every day,’” Debinski said, “meaning you want to stay after school and do activities. In the same way, you don’t want to be in your dorm every single day, you want to go to meetings and have practice and do stuff off campus.”
Dr. Kristie Crumley, the director of Student Life at Carroll Community College, said she hopes students will take the opportunity to explore unique and interesting classes early in their college career.
She said many students attend community college because it’s more affordable to take general education course there and then transfer to a four-year school to complete a major. But she advised students to take some time to explore while at the community college level.
“I know students are often thinking about how they are going to pay for their schooling and they want every class to count toward their degree,” Crumley said. “But we believe that students, no matter where they go, are entitled to some exploration about their interest area, that is what college is about, taking classes in all sorts of areas that you never thought about before, classes that will open up your mind.”
Madeleine Gardner, another Gerstell Academy graduate, just finished her freshman year at Dickinson College. She recommends first year students take time to explore a variety of classes and careers before settling on a major.
“Take classes in several disciplines or areas of interest,” Gardner said. “It’s helpful to get to know college academics before getting stuck in a major.”
She also spends time at the career center and tap into the wealth of knowledge and expertise of professors.
“Be a regular at the career center. They usually have contact information for all the majors and what kind of professions people in those majors end up in,” Gardner said. “And talk to professors and see what past students have done with those majors.”
Kara Thompson just finished her first year at Carroll Community College and the Francis Scott Key High School grad said one thing she learned this year is the importance of using the tutoring services offered at most two- and four-year colleges.
“The tutoring center is a great place to start when it comes to getting the most out of classes, and no, it’s not just a place to go when you’ve fallen behind,” Thompson said. “I recommend going early in the semester. I go whenever I need help on math homework, need a paper edited or just need a deeper explanation on a subject covered in class.”
In fact, Thompson said that next semester she intends to sign up for one-on-one tutoring early in the semester because by the time she realized she needed it previously, the time slots were all filled up.
Students looking ahead to their first year of college have concerns, but parents often share in their anxiety. Karen Violanti is a first-year dean at McDaniel College and, according to her, parent concerns focus primarily on academic and social success.
“We try to address a lot of concerns through programming and orientation, but many parents worry about what happens if their child is struggling in class, what resources are readily available to their children, what if the college level work is overwhelming,” Violanti said. “And socially there are concerns about integrating into the community, being away from home for the first time, meeting people, making connections and living independently.
“By the end of the year, freshman are more savvy. They definitely have a better sense of how to navigate the campus, where to go for resources, who to connect to,” Violanti said. “Developmentally they are feeling more comfortable in their own skin, they know where they want to fit in on campus, and some of them are just starting to get their feet wet in terms of a major or career path. It’s really exciting to see. There’s definitely a change and it’s exciting and motivating to see them evolve from day one until the last day of the semester.”
