www.lifehack.org: College is the time to try new things, meet new people, and have new experiences. The things is, it can all fall apart if you don’t have a clear idea of what you are getting into. Be sure to make the best of it with these tips for new college students.
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This article provides a pretty accurate list of tips for new college students. In general, I believe that college is a different experience for everyone. Even for a Design/Production class in the School of Drama, each person in the class learns differently and has a unique college experience. However, the tips in this article are all very goods things to keep in mind for a new college student as they embark on their first year of their education. The two tips that I think are extra important in this article are the following: Know the people who are the years ahead of you and go to class. College is difficult for everyone, especially for freshmen. Between being away from home (for some) for the first time and taking on a difficult, heavy course load, adjusting to college can be hard. Having people who you are friends with in the years ahead of you really does help. For some reason, half of the people who lived on my dorm floor last year never went to class. I cannot imagine paying the amount of money that I am paying for CMU and not showing up to class. While we are paying partially for the experiences of college, we are mostly paying for our education. It is absolutely impossible to get the most out of your college education unless you go to class in the first place.
Wow, I clicked on this article expecting to then start typing another "oh my god this article was so pointless, its all just common sense" comment, but I am happily surprised that is not the case. I thought this was a perfect list. Every college student should read it, not just the new ones. It is actually alarmingly close to the list I keep in my head of what I should be aiming for while I'm here. I realized recently that last year I was so focussed on learning all the school parts of college, I ended up bypassing a lot of life learning experiences. This article is a great reminder to learn as much as you can about everything you can while your in school. College is such a unique time in our lives, starting to experience what life as an adult is like but still with plenty of cushions to fall back on if something goes wrong. We don't really get another shot at something like that, and I think in order to be a successful as possible in the later stages in our lives, we need to really do everything this article says to the best of our ability.
I thought a lot of really excellent ideas were presented in this article. At first, I found the tone a little patronizing, but really it was more the author's way of trying to sound funny and relatable. I think one of the best pieces of advice he gave was to keep in contact with old friends. Because there are so many ways to stay in touch with people far away, I think we assume it will be easy to keep up with everyone. While there are faster ways to communicate with our friends at home, that doesn't mean it doesn't take any effort. You still have decide when you are going to take time out of your college life to write a message or skype a friend from home. Its hard to balance school and your social life at college as it is, so keeping up with a social life from afar can be tricky too.
One thing I have heard people say about living on a college campus is that you're in a bubble, and just having been here for 3 weeks, I have noticed this. A couple days ago, I noticed the news playing on the tv in my dorms lobby, and I realized that I have no idea what is happening in the rest of the world because my life has completely revolved around college. But it is possible to keep up with college, socially and academically, and still know what is going on with the outside world and stay in contact with your old friends.
I also thought this article was going to be a no brainer but there were definitely some helpful tips that hadn't really crossed my mind, especially keeping in touch with old friends. I've been doing, I think, a good job so far of keeping in touch with family, but I realized I haven't talked to any of my friends since I got here. So right away after reading the article I made sure to get in touch with my friends and catch up with them.
I agree with Sydney that it almost feels like living in a bubble right now and its easy to forget that there are things going on in the rest of the world.
As for the rest of the advice, its all important but nothing I hadn't heard before. The importance of going to class, time management, getting involved, and getting to know upperclassmen has been drilled into my head pretty well at this point. But overall I did find the article useful.
I suppose I shouldn't be concerned about not going to class since attendance is mandatory here.. However, on a more serious note, all this advice sounds fair legitimate. A lot of it definitely rings true with similar words of wisdom I've been given by friends and family. Its good to hear it again from another source!
All the advice seems to advocating the same general concept: balance your life. Make time to work, and make time to play. Know yourself and what you can do and what you can't. Sounds good to me!
I highly disagree with April about this article it is extremely mundane common sense. The author wrote simple thirteen cliche points about anything and phased his discourse under the title of college advice. Writing down advice or even writing down and narrowing advice down for people does not make your advice any less cliche and overused it just means that you wrote down popular advice. The only way advice is actually useful is when it brings a fresh light or perspective to a topic. This article did none of that. The simple anecdotes seem as if they are all from my parents as they dropped me off the first day. The advice is impersonal and is not backed by seemingly any personal experience. This out that how am I as a reader to believe that the thirteen points being made actually make sense, work, and are useful?
Even though we live in this crazy world of theater and living on a time schedule that may seem to be a couple off hours off from the rest of the world, all of these points of advice we can all take to heart. Most of these i would love to do better with myself, being able to find a balance between managing work and homework and having a social life is often difficult, and seems like it often results in a social life and best friends being dropped by the wayside. This is something that i would like to be get better at while im here, at CMU, theater isnt the only part of my life, but often it seems to be the only part i get.
I honestly feel like this article was very much common sense. It told you all the generic things that you are supposed to do at any college. However, we do not go to "any college". We go to Carnegie Mellon, and on top of that, we are in the school of drama. yes, everything the article said will help you get by and may help you last a while at CMU, but there are so many other things that you need to know and learn in order to succeed that the author of this article doesn't even begin to touch on. The list, in general will help new college students become a "generic" student. That is definitely not who we want to be. We want to make a name for ourselves and in order to do that I think we need to break away from some of these rules that the article lays down for us. We need to be bold, loud, and extravagant. Along with the basics that this list provides, this is how we will be successful at one of the best theater conservatories in the world.
This article definitely presented 13 good points. I think that the one that stands out most for me is get involved. These two have proven to be invaluable for me in my time at college. I feel that I have learned more about how to be effective from my peers than my classes. I live in a house full of Chemistry and Biology Majors, and I am studying Art and Public Policy. The lessons i have learned form the scientific approach to problem solving has scaffolded my work in my classes in ways I could not have imagined. The bottom line is that if i had not involved myself with peers with interests outside of my own, I would be far less equipped to do the things I need to.
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