Tips for an Incoming Freshman
Perhaps the best piece of advice I ever received about beginning college was this: You are not prepared, but neither is anyone else.
At the time, I thought it was meant to be a comfort, a way of letting me know that I could mess up more than a few times without judgment. I realize now that while that is certainly true, it was also the only piece of advice that truly captured the scope of college itself.
Most of the advice we get as high school juniors and seniors is about academics, finding friends, and personal responsibility. If not one of those, then maybe you’ve been privy to the classic “make good choices” speech, or the classic number about managing your time wisely. These are all good, foundational ideas behind making the adjustment to college life, but what I find is that very rarely are high schoolers given any advice about independence.
College is a new environment. There’s no way around that. And unless you’re planning on attending classes from home, the change in environment will afford most students a new level of independence that they have never experienced before.
Yet how much that independence affects the day to day lives of those students is entirely up to them. You make the choice. You determine the distance between yourself and those who would influence your decisions, whether they are your parents, counselors, or even your friends.
That’s a big deal. A much bigger deal than most incoming freshmen realize. They often don’t realize the level of influence their high school environment has over them until they leave it. That simple fact makes it nearly impossible to prepare for.
The friends you keep in college won’t be friends simply because you have class or an extracurricular together. You’ll keep them because both of you decide to stay in contact, to make the effort for each other, because you enjoy each other’s company. That reality already increases the amount of independent control you have over the people you spend time with.
It’s more difficult with family of course. One of the main determining factors in their influence is the distance you decided to travel for school. Traveling out of state for university affords you so much freedom, but even moving ten miles away is ten more miles of independence you didn’t have before.
When I left for my freshman year, I was only about a fifteen minute drive from my parents' house. For the first few weeks, it felt like the longest distance I’d ever traveled.
I’ve always been close with my parents, and they’ve never tried overly hard to push me towards one direction academically or professionally. I didn’t think that leaving the house would mean all that much in terms of independence because they didn’t try to make decisions for me to begin with.
I was very wrong. Regardless of your relationship with your parents, regardless of how present they are in your decision-making process, as little as fifteen minutes can make a huge difference for you. Like with friends, you both have to make a specific effort to see each other and speak with each other. That effort will have a massive impact on how you interact with your family, trust me.
When it comes to actually managing this independence, I can give you these short pieces of advice:
- Your classwork is your responsibility
- Having fun is also your responsibility
- Maintain your connection to other people, don’t let them slip away just because you don’t want to reach out
- Independence is as freeing as it is stressful, ask for help when you need it!
- Your time is you most valuable asset, don’t give it to people who waste it
Stay safe and stay healthy. Use your independence to fuel your self growth in whatever direction you choose. Whether that makes you a better student, a better friend, or just a better person, is entirely up to you.
Claire van Doren
Junior, English Literature and Journalism