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Throughout my first semester, I have learned to value my time to relieve some of the tension going into college. I cannot stress this enough but even when life gets busy with school, work, family, and so on, make time for yourself. Whether it is a walk in the park, a good nap, or my favorite window shopping, making time for yourself will help relieve any stress and is a huge reminder to slow down. Even treating yourself with a nice sweet drink or a new pair of sneakers is a reward for your hard work. While it is easy to cast ourselves aside to prioritize other things in our lives, it’s important to remember that we need to protect the person we are becoming so we can do amazing things in life. 

Source: Picture I took at Bonafide Juicery-Green Bay

Instead of juggling everything at once, we can also simply ask for help. I found talking with my professors as a helpful way of navigating my success. If you are wondering what is required of yourself throughout your courses or need clarification on assignments, your professors are a primary source of all that information. All the professors here at UWGB are supportive and encourage their students to not be afraid to talk to them. Most importantly, all college campuses provide many resources for all sorts of help. Whether it’s research, writing, or even when you’re hungry, each campus has places to get the help you need. In my first weeks of college, I was embarrassed to go to the financial aid office for help with my student account and payments. However, when I got the help I needed, I was able to resolve any issues regarding my student account. I left the office feeling relieved and the stress was gone. At the end of the day, recognizing the need for help and acknowledging your needs are great ways to stay successful through college. It’s not easy and can be embarrassing, but these moments during college are meant to maximize the person we will become.

 

Two of the biggest things I wish I would have known coming to college as a freshman, would have been to not stress over all the little things and how to manage my time. My first few weeks of college were an absolute nightmare. Between trying to make new friends and perfect all my homework assignments, I felt as if I were drowning. It wasn’t until week three that I finally took a step back and realized, wait a second, what’s wrong with only having one close friend at college? Why do I feel the need to stress over every homework assignment and double and triple check things? I wish I could go back and tell myself at the beginning of the school year to tell myself that it is okay to relax and it’s okay to take a break if something is stressing you out. Looking back, I think in those first few weeks I was struggling with my time management because I was so worried about trying to make everything perfect that I forgot the importance of having down time.

One thing that I think all incoming freshmen should be told is that it is okay to struggle. But when you get to the point where you are realizing this, you should take a step back and wonder. When was the last time I called my parents, hung out with friends, went and to get food or just sat back and did absolutely nothing. If your answer to this is “I don’t know” that’s completely okay, it just means that you should sit down and make plans for the next couple of days out. A plan helps you balance out your homework, social time, and your personal time. You still might be struggling in classes or over preparing for something, but at least you have something to look forward to in the near future. If you just keep on working with no set time or goal at the end you are going to burn yourself out. This is why learning how to better manage your time in your first few weeks of school and learning to not stress over the little things is crucial for you to have a happier and more successful college experience.

When I was in middle school and in early high school days, I always told myself that when it was time for me to go to college that I was going to go as far away as I could. Little did I know that I was going to choose a university ten minutes away from home. Over the time I’ve learned that there are many pros and cons to being a commuter.   The biggest con for me is that sometimes I don’t feel like I am in control, there are days where there’s bad weather, moments where I can’t find parking spots, and heavy traffic. This year I have a lot of time in between my classes and wish I could just walk to my dorm and nap. It would get really expensive if I went back and forth from school to my house. There are also times where I feel like I am missing opportunities that students living on campus may have. It makes me feel left out since I’m not there to experience campus life. Since I have a part-time job it’s also a conflict trying to find a right schedule,it can get hard trying to make time for my outside life and personal life.

 But the good always outweighs the bad. For every con, there’s five pros of being a college commuter. The biggest pro there is, is that I get to save a lot of money by living at home, which is a win-win for me. I also enjoy coming home to my mom’s home cooked meals and having dinner as a family, seeing my extended family, pets, and best friends whenever I want to. When I get sick I know that I turn into the biggest baby, it’s nice to know that I can always count on my mom to be there when I need her the most, I would be devastated if she wouldn’t be near me when i’m sick. But overall it’s nice to not have to say emotional goodbyes and wait until thanksgiving to see them. Best thing about commuting is that I appreciate having my own personal room and bathroom. I don’t have to worry about changing and worrying that my roommate will see me. It also makes you appreciate sleeping in a comfortable bed. I enjoy my queen size bed, do you enjoy your bed? 

I think everyone should at least get involved with one on-campus activity. If your world just revolves around school, that hinders opportunities to build friendships. In my point of view, if you don’t have friends, you’re going to be in a world of hurt. Also, it’s always good to do more than just studying. That’s one of my motives to get involved. Because to be honest, I wouldn’t want a boring life just studying and playing video games. In terms of what activities to get involved in, that solely depends on your interests and motivations. I would give intramural sports a go. It’s good to stay active, make new friends, and find something that interests you. There’s flag football, basketball, badminton, cornhole, volleyball, just to name a few. 

However, I think you should set limits on how much you’re involved in. I can testify to this. I was involved with Cru, intramural flag football and basketball, and a fraternity. I had to drop the fraternity because it didn’t work for my schedule, the people weren’t the best for me, it cost too much, and it just didn’t feel right for me. But, with the activities I’m currently involved in, people accepted me for who I was, it didn’t cost anything, and I don’t mind doing it. By doing the activities I invest my time in, I’ve made some very good friends and ones that I like to be around. At the end of the day, I think you have to do what’s best for you in terms of balancing fun and school, making sure they’re activities you genuinely enjoy, and the peers in the group are the right fit for you.

Image source: https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/sports/hs/article/Multi-sport-athletes-say-diversifying-helps-them-11196851.php

            As someone who was afraid to reach out and be involved during high school, I was expecting college to play out the same way. I didn’t do anything other than school my freshman year and slowly worked my way to being involved over the course of the four years. Over the summer, I started looking into different clubs and activities that are offered on campus. I started looking into a sorority, and DECA. Just from looking at the various clubs, I would think to myself “yeah there is no way I’m going to join anything my freshman year.” During GB Welcome when they talked about OrgSmorg, I decided I would go and check it out just to see if anything interested me. I went to four different booths: Zeta Omega Tau, DECA, Hip Hop, and student ambassador. I am now currently involved with three of those four activities. I am pledging for Zeta Omega Tau, I ran for VP of Recruitment in DECA and won, and I made the competition hip hop team.

            I would say going out of my comfort zone and signing up for various activities is the best decision I have made since I came to college. It is undoubtably keeping me extremely busy with practices and meetings, but I am meeting so many more people I would not have met if I did not sign up for these activities. I would recommend signing up for even just activities you think you may enjoy. You will meet so many new people and do so many new things to truly make the most of your college experience right away. While you may want to sign up for the array of activities, just make sure you are not overdoing it to the point you cannot get your schoolwork done. You want to have a great college experience, but you also want to get a degree. If there is one thing you take away from this, it would be get involved to meet new people, but don’t get too involved to the point you don’t get your schoolwork done.My sorority (Zeta Omega Tau) pledge class

 

Things aren’t going as well as I expected,  there are more deadlines and more assignments that I need to complete day in and finish day out and some are not completed either which is a massive problem for me because as I let things slide out more homework accumulates, and that means I won’t get the chance to hang out with my family or friends as I use to back in high school, my parent would get upset that I have to finish homework all-day and arrive at home straight to my room and finish more late assignments. It is stressful and annoying sometimes, I would get mad at myself for procrastinating so much and lose so much time to finishing work. I thought that college would be easier, less stressful, and more complicated at the same time, but I was wrong it would be part of life I mean the reality of college am I right or am I wrong? 

However things will change I will find different ways to get help on missing work use my time wisely and most importantly ASK HELP, I am one of the people who don’t ask for help and things go all over the place it is a mess. Still, I will ask for help when I need it, and for my missing assignments, I set an appointment at the learning center. Honestly am quite excited about it because I heard from many teachers that tutoring help is the best way to get caught up with any help for any subject, I was relief, there is so much help and opportunities that I keep missing out there are teachers that are willing to help me out or giving options on the best way to be successful, and I appreciate it.  

 

Before I started college, I really wondered if it was going to be like in the movies, big lectures, frats/sororities, making friends, tiny dorm rooms, and partying every night. In reality, for me, it wasn’t like that at all. I was a commuter, so that cut down a lot of the “traditional” college life activities. I would drive to the University of Green Bay every day, so I never got to experience dorm life. The first day of school I actually had a class with twenty students, so that answered my curiosity of wondering if all my classes would be lectures. This to me was a sense of relief because I can have one on one conversations with the professor. Since I’m a commuter, I realized that everyone in my classes already had their cliques. I thought it was going to be hard to make friends or even start a conversation, but in reality everyone is really nice and welcoming.

Overall I expected college to be this judgemental place where people are always loaded with homework and stressed out while consuming a lot of caffeine. But actually it’s not; everyone is very friendly and wants students to get involved. A lot of the time professors will assign a couple of assignments but they give students lots of  time to work on them, since they know that we have outside lifes and other things that we need to do. In reality college did not match my expectations, it exceeded them. Everyone who is here like professors, advisors and, even students, they’re all here to help us succeed. This is just a piece of how my college journey has been, I still have two years to go. 

      source;Ivywise.com

 

This summer when I was getting ready to go to college, I was excited for the new adventures, friends, free time, and of course having my roommate become my new best friend. However, when I got here, everything was different. I am on the softball team here at UW-Green Bay, so I learned that having lift, practice, class, and study tables quickly filled the day. There was no such thing as break time or watching TV. Another thing I expected to happen at college was to make many new friends and I have; my softball team is my family of 22 other girls. I also joined Athletes in Action which is where all athletes can explore their faith together, and I have been able to meet other athletes who have the same beliefs and goals as I do.  They are all so interested in getting to know me too. I have created new relationships that I never thought I would have, so this has been one of the most interesting and greatest months of my life.

I had always hoped that I would be close to my freshman year roommate, but things are different once living in close quarters with someone you don’t know very well. I imagined my freshman year roommate and I would be each other’s best friend. Once I moved in, I quickly learned that we were complete opposites. She doesn’t clean up her dirty dishes or clothes, help clean, make her bed, and sleeps through all her alarms so I wake her up. This was an adjustment for sure because I am a cleaning fanatic. However, there is a positive to this story, I found my three closest friends on the softball team, and so us four have decided we want to live together next year. I am glad about the lessons and memories my roommate has given me. I found out what college was about, school of course, but also finding yourself and the people you love most to help you through every day.

 

 

There is no doubt that college life is much different than the lives we had before. With responsibilities such as keeping your room clean, college is much different than high school. In college you are expected to “be your own boss.” For me being my own boss is making sure that everything that needs to be done is done, like laundry, cleaning, and homework, but also scheduling when to get my work done and working ahead. Being your own boss means squishing the bug of procrastination and laziness. In college you don’t have your parent or teacher nagging you to get your work done or to wake up in the morning. You and you alone have the freedom to decide when or what to get done. It is easy to fall behind in college if you don’t keep track of work, don’t study, or choose not to show up to class.

I find that being my own boss has many more pros than cons. Some of the pro’s would be the fact that I have freedom. I can decide to stay up, but I can also decide when I need to say no to people and spend time working on homework or studying. Another pro would be I don’t need to depend on anyone else, so when things don’t go as well as they should have, I take the blame and learn how to fix my own problems. I cannot blame anyone else but myself for my mistakes. A con of being on your own boss is nothing will get done unless you do it. You don’t have your mom doing laundry and cleaning “behind the scenes,” it is all on you. A major key to success here is learning how to balance academics and life in a way it is manageable.

Source: https://www.lillablu.com/freedom-of-being-your-own-boss/