incoming freshman tap in 🫰🫰🫰
Alright, let's start actually like a day if you days before the first day of classes. My biggest recommendation of this whole video that I'm starting out with this one.
#1 walk to your classes ahead of time. Walk to them. Pull up your schedule, look at what building it's in, type it into Apple Maps, put it on walk mode and walk there. Because even if you think your campus is small, big, you think you've got it all figured out, it's unfamiliar to you. Like I'm going to be a senior, even sometimes I still get like nervous and I'm like, wait, where am I walking in this direction? Like that's not where my classes are. It's the first day of classes, it's always like a big adrenaline rush, there's kids everywhere, a lot of other people don't know where they're going. They don't know where they're going. It's like an added layer of stress that you don't need to have. Get your steps in, take a walk around campus and go to all your classroom buildings. And if you can get inside of the building and go to your class, that's even better because I swear, some of these buildings are so big and confusing that the easiest part of getting to the building and then actually finding like your classroom is sometimes even harder.
Alright, so it's the first day of classes, let's talk about what you're going to do.
#2 get up early and get ready. Give yourself time. Don't want to stress, get yourself ready, look put together, eat some breakfast. Just think about the first impression that you want to give to them. Because this is the first day of classes, especially if you're a freshman, everybody else in your class is probably going to be freshman or sophomore. Like I highly doubt you'll have any upperclassman in your freshman classes that you take first semester. So this is like where you're going to meet people, this is where you're going to meet people your age. You want to give off a good first impression to them and also to your professors. So get up in the morning, give yourself time to not have to rush and to not start your day already stressed out and rushing and eat something because maybe you have classes back to back and you won't have time to eat. And you don't want your stomach to be growling in class.
#3 get to class early. With that being said, get to your class early for multiple reasons. One, again, we want to make a good first impression on the first day, not just to our peers, but to our professor as well. But also because in college you don't have assigned seats, but you will have like an unassigned assigned seats. But you will have like an unassigned assigned seats. Especially in a smaller class, like your freshman seminars and stuff like that where the rooms and the class sizes are smaller, you will definitely have like unassigned assigned seats. Like where you sit on that first day and that first week of classes is where you're going to naturally be going to sit every single class. So make sure you pick a good seat that you can see the board, see the professor, talk to the people next to you, make some friends.
#4 connect with your professors. And then here's my next point. Make a good connection with your professors within that first week of school. Because if you're one of those people who's like reaching out, being a go-getter, putting yourself out there, you're going to make those connections with your professors before anybody else does. And you're going to stand out to them. Most people don't even like make a connection with their professor, they just don't even speak to them outside of emailing them for class concerns. If you're making a connection with your professor, you're going to get opportunities that nobody else has and you're going to have like a mentor and somebody rooting for you right there.
And this is something that I wish still to this day that I was better at and that I did more. But before classes start, check the syllabus. If it's posted, and you can access it, and you know, sometimes it's annoying and you can't actually see the syllabus until like the day of, but if the syllabus is on earlier and you can access it, go on the syllabus, look at the due dates and go in your calendar and write down all the major due dates, especially for exams and big projects because in the midst of the semester with all the craziness going on, especially your first semester of college, you're going to forget things. You're going to forget things. I remember like my first exam, it really creeped up on me and I wish I had written down when they were and then even in my planner writing down like, oh, exam is next week, exam is in two weeks, like I could have prepared for it.
Trust me, being organized is like everything in college, especially your first semester when you're balancing like trying to get used to college life and being involved and, you know, starting this new life. The last thing you want to worry about is if you forgot about an assignment. Write it down in your planner so you don't forget. Or have it like marked off in your Apple calendar or something. So soak up every single opportunity because it feels like just yesterday that I was like a little freshman running around with a chicken with its head off on campus and now I'm about to start my last semester. Take it in, make the most of every opportunity and it's okay to be nervous. Being nervous just means that you care. So, have fun. And I'm jealous.
