They say your college years are “the best years of your life.”
Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t.
Freshman year is whirlwind of subpar living conditions, subpar food, subpar liver function, subpar general education classes and if you’re like the majority of people, subpar roommates. Aside from the moments of euphoric I’m-living-on-my-own bliss, it can be kind of, well, bleh.
Some people fall madly in love with the chaos and newness from the moment Mom and Dad dropped them off outside the dorm, but some people don’t. It can be challenging and weird and you can be kind of lost in the shuffle.
We asked UF graduates and UF upperclassmen from the GVS team what advice they would give to their freshman selves and here’s what we found.
(We all turned out alright.)
Academics
1. If you hate all the classes you are taking the first semester of your freshman year (unless they are all general education classes), you probably hate your major. Consider changing it. It’s not going to “get better” like some advisers love to tell you. You most likely hate what you’re doing, and before it’s too late, find something you really love. Do something you couldn’t imagine your life without. Don’t listen to your parents, friends or your professor. If they don’t wipe your ass for you, they shouldn’t choose your career.
2. Confused about your major/career path? Schedule an advising appointment with the CRC.The advisors there are helpful and patient. No one can provide us the key to our futures, but they can offer us tools to help figure it out on our own, even if it’s just talking about your hopes, fears and unorthodox aspirations. Personally, it proved to be a surprisingly cathartic experience.
3. Don’t think you’re too cool for tutoring. Almost everyone at UF uses an outside study service when the going gets rough. Swallow your pride and invest in alternative help.
4. Make friends with your professors. It opens up an absurd amount of doors and opportunities.
5. Talk to multiple advisors. The system is not perfect and sometimes advisers are just giving you their best guess. If you get multiple opinions, you’re more likely to make a well rounded decision.
6. Throughout college, you will have a lot of weird moments where your positive assumptions about professors will be tested. There’s sexism and racism everywhere, even at the top tier of UF. Do not be afraid to challenge derogatory statements. Start off your freshman year right and always believe in yourself.
7. Take classes outside of your major. This is the time to find out what your passion is.
8. During your first year, join as many clubs as you like and are interested in. Then narrow it down to the few you are really passionate about and stay heavily involved. It gives you an outlet outside of classes, it lets you build on your interests in a way that classes may not and by keeping involved you can gun for leadership roles.
Social Life
1. Get to know Gainesville. It’s far greater than the four street perimeter of bad hunch punch and the Turlington potato statue.
2. Don’t be disappointed if you make zero friends in your classes. It’s not like the movies where someone will ask to borrow a pen and then invite you to a party. You can try to make conversation and connect with new classmates, but if they would rather just scroll through Facebook in class, don’t worry about it.
3. Don’t peg your self esteem and confidence on Greek life. If you’re in it, have fun, but don’t take it too seriously and form a superiority complex.
4. When you wake up in the morning and find articles of clothing missing, nobody came into your room and took them off your body. You probably folded them in your inebriated sleep state and put them in the wrong drawers.
5. Eat the late night pizza while you can.
6. Not many people really date their freshman year, so don’t get freaked out by the “Netflix & Chill” “Tequila & Fuck” mentality. It will pass when everyone grows up a bit. Don’t lower your standards (unless you want to).
7. If you’re going to sleep around a lot, make sure you’re emotionally stable enough for it. Some people just aren’t meant to be slutty and you’ll end up feeling v shitty about yourself.
Via: Flickr
Adjusting
1. It’s okay if you don’t like college right away. It takes a lot more time than you might think to get adjusted to so much freedom. Don’t be discouraged if all your friends seem to be loving it and you aren’t, because odds are, at least a couple of them are feeling the same way as you. Give yourself a semester or two to get used to college life and then figure out if this is really where you want to be.
2. Learn to not give too much of a shit about what other people think of you. College is a great time for self expression and a unique opportunity to just do you.
3. Branch out. Don’t get stuck with your high school friends feeling like nothing has changed since you moved here.
4. There’s the timeline you live by, and then there’s the timeline in which things actually happen. It’s okay if everything doesn’t fall into place right away.
5. Talk about your feelings. Adjusting can be hard and we all take it differently. You’d be surprised how many people feel the same way as you.
6. Try to take care of your body. At least a little bit. Trying to lose 15 pounds is a fucking nightmare.
7. Ask for help. You don’t have to pretend like you learned everything about college life in your first few weeks. People have made the same exact mistakes before you, so avoid those and make your own. (If all else fails, just comment on this article with a BS name and email and we’ll answer your questions.)
8. Don’t let being disconnected from home let you fall into becoming disconnected from reality and the events/people going on around you. Make sure to be mindful of how tethered to the ship you are.
Featured photo courtesy of: Unsplash
