What I Learned My Freshman Year and The Advice I Wish I Had : The Good, The Bad, and The Chaotic
When I first entered Auburn University my freshman year I knew that it would be interesting and it was in a lot of different ways. Now I look back at all the decisions I made and there is a lot of advice that I wish I could share with my past self. This advice probably would have saved not only my time and experience, but alas my poor gpa.
My freshman year was more or less a bit of a fair old disaster in the sense I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. College your freshman year is like trudging through a barren wasteland blind and at night in like a fantasy world. You can only follow your instincts and sometimes they get you into sticky situations. From that experience I have a lot of advice and words of wisdom I would like to share so that others don’t make the same mistakes I did.
My first piece of advice regards registration: Always have backups and backups to your backups. This I cannot stress enough. Registration in college is not like how it was in high school, where you filled out a sheet and immediately got the classes you wanted. No, registration is cutthroat. It’s like black Friday shopping, and you are running around trying to find that perfect item on sale, and you have to fight off other people to get it. Registration is NEARLY impossible, and I do stress NEARLY. In my freshman year, I made the mistake of only having one backup, and not only did 2 of my original classes fill up before I could get in but so did my backup, so I had to scramble to find classes. I got some excellent classes but less desirable time slots. I am talking like an 8 am and 4 pm MWF. So always have backups for class registration.
Another piece of advice I would like to share would be about the concept of dropping classes. I know this is a controversial topic because, on the one hand, dropping a class can be a death sentence, but on the other hand, it can be your saving grace. But, if you are nearly failing a class and are miserable and don’t understand anything you are learning, then drop it. I made a mistake my freshman year of not dropping a class. It was Intro to Psych with Gitter, and it was the worst thing I have ever experienced. That man did not teach the class like an intro class. I felt like I was a psych major in a 4000 level class. At the time, I didn’t understand what the impact of dropping a class would do, so I stuck with it. This was a mistake. I ended the class with a D which tanked my GPA, and I spent the last four years rebuilding it. So moral of the story, if you want to drop a class regardless of the reasons, which could be that you’re failing, nearly failing, hate the teacher, hate the class, or so on, and it won’t deter you from graduating, Do It! Usually, there are still seats in other classes you can replace them with for that semester.
Not only is there advice I want to impart to my younger self there are also choices that I wish I had made and would love a do-over if I could. A choice I made that I wish I could have had a do-over on is saying no to a sorority that invited me to join them. I was always apprehensive about joining a sorority because I was worried about the time commitment, and I was and still am very focused on my studies. But, had I known how hard it would be to make actual friends and get involved, I would have joined a sorority. It is the fastest way to get involved and make friends.
A memory that I wish I could tell my younger self to enjoy longer would probably be when my sister and I went trick-or-treating in downtown auburn; I mean, free candy, who wouldn’t go in like 30-degree weather. But, of course, this was also before covid. Anyway, My sister and I were in line, and we were hardcore blessed out by some high schoolers because they thought we were too old for candy. I have never laughed at someone so much in my life. My sister and I stared at them for a good 20 seconds to make them think we were mad, and they got all nervous, then we burst out laughing in their faces. They looked so shocked it was hilarious. I think I would tell myself to enjoy this memory more because my sister and I didn’t get to do that again because of Covid, and then she graduated from Auburn soon after and went to Georgia Tech.
Overall, while my freshman year was a bit of a disaster, it would be a good learning experience. I wish I had received advice regarding class registration/ selection and dropping classes that way, and I would have saved myself a lot of stress. However, I am happy to impart some of my wisdom to others who might find this information helpful and humorous. I hope people will enjoy their first year because it will be gone before they know it.
For more advice for college freshman here are some links:
https://www.livecareer.com/resources/jobs/search/first-year-success