Blog 6: Get Involved

I’m sure you have heard this multiple times in high school. In college getting involved is a little bit better and also slightly different than high school. Of course, for college the whole sports thing is a little hard to get into because college coaches recruit their team before the season even starts. If you go to a division three school chances are you could probably tryout for some sport but it’s a litter hard to get into if you were recruited. One thing you could think about joining is the intermural sports team. Intermural sports are sometimes better for the busier students because it keeps you active, but you don’t have the commitment of practice. If you’re not into the athletic part of being involved, then you can always find a club that suits your interests. If your campus doesn’t have a club you find interest in, the good news is that you can start one. Most colleges have you fill out a form and write down an advisor for the club and then you wait for the approval. At my college (Muskingum University) a group of my friends started a club called Kendama Club. It’s a club that meets twice a month and since we just got approved to be an official club, most of the meetings consist of what to do to grow our club. It was super simple and easy to start this club and I’m so glad we did. Clubs are a great way to make new friends that share the same passion and personalities that you do.

Even if you are too shy or just not as out going to make a club, you can always have fun attending games of other sports. The football games and basketball games are the best for making new friends and giving you something to do later in the day. They are normally later to make sure everyone can try an attend a game at some point.

Blog 5: Friendships

Making friends, you have read a little bit about this in the first blog but let’s continue on with this subject. Making friends that will last a lifetime is a good chunk of the whole college experience. Something to take into consideration is the kind of people you want to surround yourself with. College has a lot of different people, and their true personalities come out especially when they don’t have their parents with them. Of course, in college some people go a little more wild then others. Personally, I am not the wild kind of person and because of that I tend to have friends that are like me. Unfortunately attending such a small school, it seems like everyone knows everyone’s business even if it isn’t important business. I wish it wasn’t this way, but sometimes it feels like high school never ends. I had an issue with my roommate and since we hung out in the same friend group some of the friends in the group decided they didn’t want to associate with me anymore. At first it was a little annoying to go from being friends to then being isolated from the group. After giving myself some reflection time, this isolation turned out to be the best thing for me. There are still so many people on this campus that I can get to know and being un-added from that friend group was probably the best thing that happened to me. I started distancing myself from that group and finding other friends that I liked to hang out with. To my surprise (sarcasm) my roommate who stayed with those same friends, now has so many more issues then she ever imagined. They all became too close too fast and everyone started getting on each other’s’ nerves. In college it seems like you need the breaks to go home and reflect on the friends you have made. Currently thanksgiving break is coming up and everyone is so ready to go home. I can’t wait to go home and get a little bit of sanity from the stressful week. If your friends are you cause of stress, its not worth it. You should try to make other friends that keep you in a positive mindset. Give out what you want to receive. Drama isn’t worth your time. There is so much to do on a college campus you just need to find out where.   

Blog 4: Dine Up

Along with the school work, and making friends, and anything else you might have learned throughout these blogs, don’t forget to eat. As I mentioned in a previous blog you can use the dining hall to make new friends and since you are the only person in control of your schedule you decided if you want to go to breakfast. You need to find the breaks in your schedule to make time to eat. For me I have two classes that end around 12:00 and then I have an hour break until my next class. I use that time to go get lunch, and since eating doesn’t always take an hour, I might use some time to do the calculus homework I didn’t do the night before. If you play a sport you need to balance when you go to eat, and if you sport is more intensive maybe you eat something light before practice and then a nice dinner after. The only down side to the dining had beside the mediocre food that is has, is the hours. I wish the dining hall was open longer than it is specifically because of practice and sports. When I was on the bowling team we would get back to campus around 7:00 and the dining hall closed at 8:00. That should be fine right? You have an hour to eat. But the worst part is that there wouldn’t be any good food left. The football team would eat everything around 7:00 and since there was only an hour left until they closed the cooks would just grill up some hamburgers and fry some fries. This food get really old really fast, and you will miss home cooked meals so much more than you ever expected to. The only advice I have for you is make sure you room has snacks. You can eat a good breakfast and a good lunch but when dinner hits you might not have the best options to eat. Keep some junk food by try and keep some healthier options too. I love fresh fruit, so when the dinning hall has apples I’ll take on and keep it in my room as a midnight snack. Chips and pretzels are always good to munch on and they keep forever. Since you will probably have a mini fridge, you can try and go to your local grocery store to get things like fresh fruit. I don’t have a car on campus so it s a little hard to make trips. That is all the advice I have for this blog but stay tuned for the tips coming in the next one.

Blog 3: Study Up

We all come to college for one reason, that reason is to get an education and degree of some kind. For me, I want to be an engineer and I am going to Muskingum University to get my basic engineering degree. This major is not the easiest, but it is something that I have a passion for and want to do for the rest of my life. Because of my major I have to dedicate a lot of time to studying and homework, but that’s ok because that is what I’m here for. The price of text books is a hefty one so I highly recommend asking the upper class men these two things. One, do you actually use the textbook for the class and two, are you willing to sell your used text book, or do you know where I can find a cheaper book. I had a professor who required the book for the class and never assigned anything out of the book and as long as you paid attention in the class you didn’t need the text book. I was so glad I talked to a friend who already took the class and told me not to spend the $60 on the text book I would never use. One thing to learn quickly in college is how well you study. Are you the kind of student that needs to go to the library to get your homework done, or can you sit on your bed with music playing and still get your work done? For me, I turned my desk in my dorm into a catch all, hold all, mess which means I do not do a lot of homework in my room. Most of the time I will go to a place on campus called the Chess Center. It is basically a small library that has a bunch of conference rooms to allows students to get their work done. I have used the library on campus before, but its too far of a walk in the cold. With learning your study habits, you also need to be aware of how you learn. Most of my professors use Power Points and just talk and talk about the things they want you to learn. For me I have to take notes and then re-write them and go back to the PowerPoint to make sure I didn’t miss anything in lecture. I also use colored pens to try and make my notes more pleasing to the eye and it helps when I go back to study important terms that are written in red. Also taking notes in pen is so much better than pencil because they last and don’t smear. That is all the advice I have for this blog but stay tuned for the tips coming in the next one.

Blog 2: ­­­Dorm Junk

             Alright welcome back to blog number 2. In the last blog we talked about making friends with the more important people like your dorm neighbors. Another tip to go along with that is keep your dorm clean. Its best if you and your roommate work out a system to keep things in order. For instance, you could try to come back from class and tidy up at least our side of the room. my roommate and I had like an hour break from classes to when we had practice and we used that to clean up the mess we might have made the night before or the day before because classes kept us from doing it earlier. Its nice to come back to a clean dorm room simply because if you want to do homework on your bed you can do so, or if you want to have some friends over for a study party your room is semi ready for it or any spur of the moment decision. The best part about college and also one of the worst is the part where you really make your own schedule. You have to figure out when you have time to go eat lunch and if you really want to get up for breakfast before that 8 am chemistry lab. My schedule has been pretty nice, I was lucky enough to have all 10 am classes except on Thursdays I have an 8 am lab. I decided to go to breakfast most of the days, unless I stay up to late doing homework. It is crucial for me to get breakfast before my 8 am lab because breakfast helps me wake up and stay awake.

            We got off topic a little bit in this blog. Either way everything that you are reading is helpful in some kind of way. Back to the clean dorm situation. Something that I have found to be really helpful with keeping my dorm organized is using the underneath of my bed for everything. I have a trunk and these little cube organizers that hid away the mess that would just be left all over my floor. I raised my bed the highest it would go to maximize the space I have underneath it. I also recommend getting a trunk that can lock so if you decide to go home for the weekend you can lock up things like your laptop and anything that you want to make sure it stays in your dorm. I also use it to hold my jewelry and text books (when I’m not using them of course). That is all the advice I have for this blog but stay tuned for the next blog for more helpful tips.

Blog 1: Friendly Tip

                 It is currently my first year as a college student and I’m going to reveal some tips and tricks I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been in college. I attend a small college in the middle of no where so some of these tips are going to be how to avoid staying in your room when you think there’s nothing to do. Trust me when I first came to this college, I was afraid that this place would be a ghost town on the weekends, and that’s only a little but true. The biggest tip I’m going to give you is… make friends. All the freshman are in the same boat, you have finally moved out of you childhood home with your parents and siblings. Everyone is at first dying for freedom and then the classes hit, and you start to feel over whelmed. When I first moved in my only friend was my roommate, we quickly started searching the hallways to see who lived around us and if they wanted to be friends and simply grab lunch at the dining hall. My roommate and I are pretty outgoing people so the friend making came easy. The good news is, even if your not an outgoing person someone on your floor will be, you could leave your door open and see if anyone walks by, and you can reach out to you neighbors because they are the people you will want to make a connection with.

               Becoming close-ish to you next door neighbors is a must and here’s why. If you and your neighbors are semi close, like on a nickname basis it is smooth sailing. If they are being too loud you can walk over and simply ask them to turn down the music, or to stop their dance party at 3 am because you want to sleep but this will only not be awkward if you two are close. If you and you neighbors are not that close then it’s a little harder for them to want to turn off their music, you could get and RA involved but its much easier at 3 am to try and handle the issue yourself. Vice versa, if you are being too loud and your neighbor asks you to calm down and not an RA then it’s an easy solution. Some RAs will write you up, or make a stink about a simple noise complaint and no one wants that. This blog was basically about dorm kind of situations and making friends but stay tuned for the next blog with more helpful tips.