My Notable First College Semester Experiences

There are several first semester experiences that freshmen don’t see coming - and others that are circled in red ink fifty times. As a freshman, you experience everything differently. Now, don’t let that fool you into thinking college isn’t great. Hopefully you’ll learn (and laugh) at my first semester experiences! Your first notable freshmen experience might happen during orientation - my dorm won a competition, and I will never forget the proud feeling during the freshmen party afterwards. You might meet your best friend or have an awesome movie night with the other freshmen on your floor, but hopefully your orientation won’t be an awkward affair and you’ll make a wonderful memory. Another notable experience is realizing you have to do laundry, and cue the confusion on how to work the machines! Luckily it wasn’t too hard to figure out, but it took my roommate and I five minutes to push the right settings the first time we did laundry. Laundry is no big deal now, but the first time I successfully didn’t lose any socks to the dryer felt like a win/win situation. A notable academic experience for me was realizing that I can only write down everything the Professor is saying and what’s on the PowerPoint if I used both hands, two notebooks, and wrote faster than I ever had before. It was tough the first week trying to figure out what exactly I needed to write down, and I eventually caught onto what I needed for the test and to study; taking notes in college is definitely a change from high school, and it was an eye-opener for me. Preparing for my first college test was a bit rough. A late night spent reviewing material, and I get to the test to realize I didn’t study an entire section. I have to admit, I was in panic mode for my first test - and I had a right to be. Even though I had tried to prepare to the best of my ability, it fell short, mainly because I wasn’t sure how a college test differed from a high school test. Hint: it’s not just a basic idea of the material any longer! The last notable first semester experience I had was when I realized I missed a deadline, and turned a quiz in late - everything else I had kept on top of, but the quiz had just slipped through the cracks. My advice to avoid for that kind of typical situation is make sure that you’re checking your planner or wherever you write your assignments down at, and double check due dates so this isn’t one of your first semester experiences! Regardless of when a notable experience happens, be sure to keep track of them, even if it’s just in your phone’s notes - you’ll look back on your college years, thinking about all of the late nights, dorm food, and fun times, and what’s better than having a list of experiences that happened each year to reflect on?