What First Semester Teaches College Freshmen
What did you learn from first semester? You may have learned that writing a quality paper in 3 hours is an impossibility. You may have learned that laundry is actually pretty time-consuming. You may have learned that getting good grades is much harder than you thought. Whatever you learned, you certainly know more now than you did at the beginning of the semester.
Believe it or not, first semester of your freshman year is probably as bad as it gets. You’re alone, and everything and everyone is new. You’re amazed that you survived, and you’re just glad to be done. With second semester right around the corner, you might be thinking about your college experience so far.
Winter break can be a great time to reflect. Think about your college experience: your major, your fit into college, your roommates, etc. What have you learned? What do you know now that you didn’t know before? Considering all you’ve been through, you are grateful to be done with probably the hardest period of your college life where you learned these 4 facts.
4 Facts Freshmen Learn First Semester
1. Making friends takes time.
Unless you came to college with multiple friends, you probably learned firsthand how difficult it is to make friends. You may have felt unbearably lonely at times, but guess what—you’re not alone.
Many students feel incredibly lonely at college. While you would think that college would provide numerous opportunities to make friends, forging new friendships in a strange place is difficult for most people.
You are very normal in your struggle to make friends at college. Finding “your people” takes time, and it can be unpredictable too. You never know how or when you’ll become friends with someone.
For example, my freshman year I sat next to a specific person in all of my major classes because of our last names. One day I noticed she had a faux fur collar on her sweater, and I teased her that it reminded me of my cat.
As weird as my story sounds, this was literally the first moment we both hit it off. Guess what? She’s one of my closest friends from college. Yes, that’s right. Our friendship formed from one ridiculous comment about a sweater. I never would’ve predicted that several years later, we would still be friends. But it happened and we are still friends.
You may not have found even one good friend yet, but that’s 100% ok. It will get better. You will form friendships from semester to semester and year to year. It’s all part of the process, even though it’s incredibly uncomfortable sometimes.
Know that there is nothing wrong with you. Pretending to be someone you’re not just to make friends isn’t the solution either. Be yourself. Your true friends like you best when you are yourself. The long journey to friendship is tiring and bewildering at times, but the destination is worth it!
2. Getting As requires hard work.
Everybody told you college classes were hard. Maybe you believed the tales, maybe you didn’t. In either case, you now know what you never understood before college—college classes are much harder than high school ones.
Maybe your high school was pretty challenging, but now in college you’ve learned to balance more things. You have many responsibilities and no parent to bail you out. You’ve had to learn to succeed or fail by yourself.
While most college students can get Cs with some effort, it takes much more work to get As and Bs. If you want to be a top student, earning mostly As, you have to put in the time. Good grades don’t happen by accident.
Top students form important studying habits that help them get As. First, they don’t copy down every word from the powerpoint screen. Instead they focus on the teacher’s words. You’ve probably learned this on quizzes and tests, but your teacher explains concepts that aren’t even on screen but are on quizzes and tests.
Second, they don’t multitask in class. Even though these students are extremely active at school and have an internship or job too, they stay focused in class. They don’t work on homework for other classes during class. They focus on one class at a time. All of their attention is focused on absorbing the material.
You’ve started to discover what works for you, and you’re probably starting to figure out what doesn’t work too. You know that working on other things in class does not help your grades. You know that scrolling through Instagram doesn’t help your grades either. You now understand that paying attention in class helps you out in the long run.
Third, they don’t pass over material they don’t get. While ignoring course concepts you don’t get may save you from getting embarrassed, it doesn’t help your grades. You may have learned that gambling on your teacher not asking certain questions doesn’t usually work out. Now if you don’t get something, you know that you need to ask for help right away.
Discovering how you learn can help you tremendously. Maybe you quickly learned that memorizing isn’t your strong point. There are other ways you can absorb the material other than flashcards. Try something that fits your learning style!
You now understand how to get As second semester: you just have to put in lots of hard work.
3. Procrastinating harms your GPA.
Procrastination is the surest way to destroy your GPA. While the adrenaline rush may excite you, you’ve learned the hard way that it doesn’t help your GPA. Your college professor filled your paper with red markings, and you earned your worst grade ever.
Putting off school work only makes you get behind, and once you get behind it’s very difficult to get caught up ever. You now know that the best way to get ahead is to begin the semester well. Instead of partying or Netflixing the first weekend of college away, you know that you need to get your homework done and start organizing your college schedule from the start.
Building a good GPA means refusing to procrastinate ever. If you have a paper due in 2 weeks, you know you need to choose a topic today. You don’t cram all the work into the wee hours of the morning. You actually write your paper, so that you have time to proofread and revise your paper before submitting it.
You can improve your GPA second semester, but you have to stop procrastinating.
4. Being away makes you grateful for family.
Your siblings can be kind of annoying. Your parents maybe are even more annoying, but now that you’ve been away from home you miss them. You may even feel homesick. You never expected to feel this way.
At college you realized that your mom and dad do so much for you. Before college you had no idea that cleaning dishes was such a pain. You probably didn’t realize how expensive things were either. Laundry, food, gas money—they all add up pretty quickly. How do you parents do it? Why were you so ungrateful before?
You have a new-found appreciation for everything your parents provide for you. You also realize that your siblings probably understand you better than most people do at college. While you like your space from home, you really are grateful for your family. The longer you’re away from home, the more you appreciate everything they do. Over winter break, you’ll take advantage of every moment you have with them.
Everybody has opinions about college and the college experience. But unless you are exactly like that person, the comments aren’t always helpful. You now have experienced college for yourself. You’ve learned to adjust. Now you know for yourself what college is like, and you’ve learned some things you didn’t know before too.
