Transitioning to College: A Student Panel – College Bound Mentor Podcast #10

Welcome to the College Bound Mentor podcast! Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all.

This is Episode #10 and you’ll hear a panel of college students who have survived freshman year at 3 different universities. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

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• Show Notes
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• Transcript

College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #10: Transitioning to College: A Student Panel

Heading off to college is one of the most exciting – and scary – moments in your life. We want to make sure you have all the helpful information you need to make your freshman year a slam dunk. In this episode, we interview a panel of college students who have survived freshman year at 3 different universities. Hear Nina, Lily, and Michael share the emotions they felt throughout their transition to college, how college life compares to what they expected, what to do if you feel homesick, the best ways to make friends, and the most surprising realizations about freshman year. This episode covers everything from freshman year to being homesick. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• How is the transition to college?
• Why did Nina want to transfer?
• What surprised you about starting college?
• How is the academic transition to college?
• Should you talk to fellow students on social media before starting college?
• Is it important to get off campus as a college student?
• What do you wish you had known as a rising college freshman?
• How do you find your roommate in college?

Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com.

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• Transitioning to College: A Student Panel
  • [0:19] Welcome to College Bound Mentor
  • [0:25] Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, Stefanie Forman
  • [0:30] Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com
  • [0:50] Who’s on today’s student panel?
  • [1:52] What is Lisa’s letter from freshman year of college?
  • [2:21] How is the transition to college?
  • [5:32] Are college students impacted by what their friends post on social media?
  • [8:55] Why did Nina want to transfer?
  • [13:35] What surprised you about starting college?
  • [14:58] How did the transition to college compare to what you expected?
  • [15:38] How is the academic transition to college?
  • [18:22] How do you find your roommate in college?
  • [21:18] Should you talk to fellow students on social media before starting college?
  • [23:02] What would you rather forget about freshman year?
  • [24:55] Is it important to get off campus as a college student?
  • [29:18] What groups can you join as a college freshman?
  • [32:32] What do you wish you had known as a rising college freshman?
  • [36:08] Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com
  • Theme Song: “Happy Optimistic Americana” by BDKSonic

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Nina 0:01
I highly recommend kind of joining as many different groups as you can.

Lisa Bleich 0:05
Hey, CBMers, welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We’re your co-hosts, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie, and we’re super excited about today’s episode. We’re going to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of the first year of college. We have a great panel of students with us, Michael from a mid-sized public university, Lily from a small liberal arts college, and Nina from a medium-sized private school. They all made it through their first year of college. And Welcome. Nice to have you guys here. It would be great if you could each introduce yourselves and maybe just let us know what college you go to, what year you are in school, and perhaps your major if you know it.

Nina 0:59
Hi, I’m Nina. I just finished up my sophomore year at Northwestern, and I’m studying econ and philosophy. I’m

Lily 1:08
Lily. I go to Wesleyan University. I’m a rising sophomore, and I’m studying I’m majoring in the College of Social Studies, which is a program at Wesleyan, and then minoring in human rights advocacy. I’m

Michael 1:19
Michael. I’m going into my second year at the University of Virginia and majoring in English. Okay,

Lisa Bleich 1:25
awesome, good. So before we get started, as I was preparing for this episode, I remembered that I actually have all of the letters that I received during my freshman year of college from all of my friends. I had probably like 50 to 75 letters. And so I wanted to just read you guys an excerpt of one that was written many, many years ago.

Stefanie Forman 1:47
Lisa, do you want to? Want to share the year that it was written? It

Lisa Bleich 1:51
was probably written in 1983 Okay, so a long time ago. So it says, Here are you homesick at all? I go through periods of extreme happiness and then through times of complete loneliness. Last week was the worst. Though, I miss my family and friends so much I just wanted to get on a plane and come home. Then this week, it’s just the opposite. So I wonder if you ever had any of those feelings and kind of what was your transition like to freshman year? Was it better or worse? Or about how you expected

Nina 2:22
it to be? Northwestern is on the quarter system, and as a result of that, we start about, I would say, a month later than most other colleges. And so seeing like, all of my friends go off, and they all were kind of like right at the beginning, when I was just kind of moving in and getting settled on campus, and at that point they were only a couple weeks in, and all were kind of like sharing the excitement and everything. And so it seemed like everyone was, you know, super excited, and everything was going perfectly well, but I would say, kind of getting on campus and being a little bit later than everybody else, I kind of felt a little bit homesick, because it felt like everybody else had kind of already found their place and found their people, and I felt like everything was just kind of brand new. And I would say that feeling definitely comes and goes throughout, like your entire first year. It’s totally normal, and there’s kind of not a lot that you can really do about it, and almost everyone experiences it, even if they don’t share it openly. And I would say that it’s nothing to kind of be too afraid of, but it is kind of scary when you’re going through it, and it just kind of takes time to build relationships and then get to the point where you kind of don’t feel that way anymore. But it definitely comes, it goes in waves, and it’s kind of a lot, right when you get there.

Lisa Bleich 3:49
Alright, so what about you guys, either Lily or Michael, did you how do how was your freshman? What was your transition like freshman year college

Lily 3:57
was like, go, go, go. In a way for me that like home wasn’t so I definitely had, like, a lot more on my plate, a lot more to do, and so probably the times I felt the most homesick, or the times I felt the most overwhelmed, whether it was with schoolwork or social stuff. But I think eventually I kind of learned how to balance, like me time and what I had to do at school in a way that felt like healthy and good, and then I slowly began to be less homesick, because I kind of figured out my routine for

Michael 4:30
me. It was pretty hard transition. I think it was harder than I expected, like number one, just being uprooted from, like, where I lived, my whole life was, was big, but I also, unlike most people, I had surgery the second week of school because I tore a tenant in my pinky playing soccer. So that was an interesting start to college. So that complicated things a little bit. But, yeah, no, it’s, it’s a big transition for me. It was a big transition in a way that I. Don’t think people talk about as much and, yeah, just, I think, like understanding it took me a while to accept that like it was, it was going to be a huge transition, and that it was okay, that, like it was tough for me, so, but it worked out, yeah. So yeah, that’s

Abby Power 5:16
one of the reasons we wanted to do this. Because I think if you can have realistic expectations about having to work at feeling comfortable and make friends, it helps kind of along those lines and related to something that Nina said because she started school late. Were you influenced by what you saw from your friends on social media? Because, as we all know, people post their very best selves on social media. So did that impact the way you viewed your own experience transitioning to school you want to start Nina?

Nina 5:53
I would say it definitely impacted how I was feeling. Well, first of all, when I was at home, and there was because we so Northwestern starts in mid September, and pretty much from mid August when everybody left, until that point, I was just seeing kind of like post after post of people, kind of with their new friends. And it kind of only made me more worried to kind of get to college, because I was like, Well, what if this isn’t the experience that I have, and all these people have already been there for however many weeks, like I’m not going to know anyone when I get there and and then getting to college, I’d say the first week is nothing like any other week that you’ll probably experience. It’s a lot of emotions, and everyone is just trying to meet as many people as possible, and that kind of carries through, but you’re not forming like real deep friendships, and almost everything that you see on social media is just like a snapshot. And it honestly took me until this year, now, like my sophomore year, to kind of realize how much it actually impacted me, because I was seeing all of the people in the year below me who had just gotten to college posting, like, all these pictures and everything. And I was like, There’s no way that, you know, these are, like, full French. I mean, maybe, maybe there is. But, like, my friend group just changed in May, and I’m a sophomore, and it really takes a while for you to kind of settle and find your people. You know, it’s okay to kind of not have the experience that you think that everybody else is having, because what you think their experience is is not always real. And I remember texting my friends kind of just like, throughout the quarter, my friends from high school, and they were all like, oh my gosh, college is amazing. I’ve like, I feel like this is the best time I’ve ever had blah, blah, blah, everything’s perfect. And I remember just feeling like I’m so overwhelmed with school and all of my like, midterms, I don’t know, like, really the most efficient way to get to the other side of campus, let alone, like, have like, a solid, like, friend group. And didn’t really know even, like, what office hours were at that point either. And there’s just so many things kind of happening at the start of college. It’s so many new things all at once that there’s no way that every single one of them is going to be perfect, even ever really, but especially not when you’ve just stepped foot on campus. And I then remember talking to my friends, kind of over the summer after freshman year, and they were all like, yeah, no, this was this was a lot harder than I was expecting. Even the friends that were saying everything was all kind of sunshine and rainbows. And so it’s a lot easier, you know, to say that everything is going well when it’s not. And I feel like that’s kind of the case for a lot of people. And so it’s okay to kind of have a bit of a bumpy road at the beginning, and a lot of people are kind of going through that too. It

Abby Power 8:44
was a lot of great information.

Lisa Bleich 8:47
And if I, if I remember Abby said that you wanted to transfer, right? Weren’t you? Didn’t you have that feeling? Yes,

Nina 8:54
I definitely had that feeling. I came from like a high school that was very small and close knit, and then was also taking a lot of accelerated classes. And so I felt like, you know, my senior year, I kind of had learned how to study. I felt like I knew exactly what I wanted to study, and I also felt like I had such good friendships, I knew my teachers, even the ones that I didn’t have and going to a new environment where kind of none of those things were true anymore, where a, everybody is super smart. B, no one kind of knows anything about anything, whether that’s about professors, about classes, about kind of what they want to do. And also, nobody has, like the deep friendships, where you kind of know each other, and know all of this, and then also kind of know how to support each other. It kind of just felt like, you know you’re going in floating a little bit and then trying to, I, kind of, I use this analogy with some of my friends, but it felt like I was, like, running on a treadmill, stuck at, like a speed of 10, and things were just getting, like, thrown at. Me, but I couldn’t really, like, see where I was going, how to catch them, and like, how to, like, make my way through it, and I didn’t know how to get off either. And I would say that’s kind of what the first semester or quarter kind of felt like for me. And I also kind of was holding myself to the same degree of academic pressure that I kind of upheld throughout high school, except I didn’t know that the quarter system moved so much faster than kind of semesters. And I didn’t know a like, how to, kind of like study in a college environment where you’re living with someone else and you have, like, libraries that you have different classes that aren’t taking up the whole day. You don’t have built in sports to kind of clear your head, and you also have to go to office hours if you have a question, and kind of all of those things combined, plus not having the social kind of relationships that I had built in high school, I just felt very kind of alone. And yes, I loved my roommate, I like, had a good friendship with her, but it just didn’t feel the same as kind of coming from a place where you knew everything. At the beginning of the second quarter, winter quarter, I actually called Abby, because I just felt very overwhelmed because I finished the first quarter, and I was so, like, happy that I got through it, but then I realized, like, wait, I have to do this again. And it was kind of that realization that you have another quarter, it’s not just winter break that you’re trying to get to. I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, I don’t know if I can do this again. And it was kind of compounded by we also had rush and sororities in Greek life. Aren’t really that big on campus at Northwestern but still, like, every single girl that I knew was rushing at the same time, and then it felt like friend groups were kind of being reformed, and everyone was kind of just like freaking out about the social aspect, in addition to the academics, which were already kind of difficult. And I just remember being like, like, I don’t know if I can do this, and I didn’t get the sorority that I like, thought that I wanted, so it was kind of in that moment that I like specifically remember, actually, a lot of people, this is going to sound really crazy, but I remember, like in in rush, a lot of people that I knew were sitting calling their moms and crying, which I know sounds probably terrifying, like it’s not college is not that bad, but I think everyone kind of had a similar moment of, kind of just everything coming together and realizing that it’s not as perfect as you think, that it’s going to be, kind of coming in, and kind of realizing that you know you have to do this again, and you have to find, like a pattern. And ended up, like joining a sorority later on, I, like, re rushed and joined other clubs on campus, and did other things and met more people, kind of talked to my professors, went to office hours, and just kind of over time, you get used to it, and then soon you don’t, like, realize and you kind of forget a lot of the things that happened. And I’m so glad that I did not transfer, because this definitely was the best school for me, but you just kind of have to get used to it a little bit and force yourself to live with that discomfort.

Stefanie Forman 13:08
Thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing that. And it sounded like so many things surprised you. You know, starting with, you know, social media is the truth, and then, I

Nina 13:18
mean, you know, oh, sorry,

Stefanie Forman 13:20
but no, but we’re still dealing with that. I mean, to reference, like Lisa’s 1983 reference, I was born in 84 and 40 years old. I’m still grasping with like, what’s true on social media, but you know, so many things surprised you. So you know Lily and Michael, what took you by surprise when you started college?

Michael 13:39
I definitely feel like my worldview opened up a lot, like I went to a high school where a lot of people came from very similar backgrounds and all had very similar experiences. And I think I was surprised when I was making all these friends with different perspectives and different interests, and I think it’s made me definitely a well rounded person today. I think I also was surprised. I think I was really afraid of making friends going in, because it takes me probably longer than the average person to make solid friendships. I’ve just kind of always been like that, and I think I was really scared about going into a new environment. Honestly, I was surprised about how like, welcoming people were, and like, how much people wanted to, like, talk to you and learn about you and be your friend, which I really appreciated.

Abby Power 14:29
Yeah, I wonder if at a small school, I mean, we have representatives from different sized schools, but it does seem like at a small school, the school kind of helps the kids, provides the kind of environment where you’re building community a little more I would imagine it’s harder at I went to Michigan and nobody helped me. You know, just you were 28,000 of us all just kind of scrapping for friendships. So Lily, would you say your transition was as expected? Easier than expected, harder than expected.

Lily 14:59
I. Would say it’s in the middle, I think there was a period where I was like, Okay, I have people I kind of know I don’t feel like they’re my people necessarily, like I don’t really know what I’m doing. And then I think I started doing more, like, extracurricular type things. And then things clicked more for me, when I kind of found, like, what my groove was and what my big place was in the school. You know,

Lisa Bleich 15:22
Nina talked a lot about all the different ways that things were challenging for her. Michael, did you find like the transition? Because there’s, obviously, there’s the academic transition, and it was a little bit harder. It sounded like when you’re on the quarter system, if you’re not used to it. UVA is on the semester system. Did you find that the academic transition was fairly easy for you. I know you were injured, but like, how prepared were you for the work?

Michael 15:45
Yeah, I felt like it was pretty easy. I mean, like, high school, I worked a lot harder in high school, the junior, like, junior, senior year of high school, than I did last year. And I feel like a lot of people agreed with me, like it was funny. I would be talking to my friend, and they’d be like, yeah, like, we were, we were insane in high school, like we were, we were monsters. And now we go to college and we it just, you know, it’s a lot different. But you know, we were like, I look at myself junior year of high school, I’m like, like, I don’t know how I did that, yeah. So, yeah, it’s not for like, context. I’m in the rich and sciences School of Virginia, whatever. I, like, took a bunch of random classes this year. It’s, you know, like, basic requirements and whatever. So it’s not like I’m taking hard, like, focused classes yet, but like, what I experienced this year, the transition was not bad at all. I didn’t think I will say that I found it harder to focus, a lot harder to focus on my work in school this year, like I’ve always been very motivated in school, but just with everything, all the new things at school, it was a lot harder to just like, sit down at a desk or in A library, whatever, and focus. So that was difficult for me, definitely, but overall, like the actual level of what I felt like I needed to do or what was expected of me in the classroom or whatever, it was not bad at all compared to high school. And

Lisa Bleich 17:16
ask you what like socially, when did you feel like you found your people or your community,

Michael 17:20
I think not until, like, spring semester, not until so UVA has we have spring rush. And I never thought I was going to, never thought I was going to join a fraternity, but I did. It’s sort of like, it’s interesting, because, like, I’m Jewish, it’s like, go to the halal all the time, and the network, but I joined the Jewish fraternity to the network between the Jewish fraternity and Hillel, and then, just like I do club soccer, there’s some overlap there. So finally, after, you know, few months from first semester second semester, I felt like I I found my people. But yeah, for me, it was, you know, after surgery, I was in my room for 10 days, like, not supposed to really move, and then, so that sort of stunted my growth socially. But yeah, not until, not until, like, second semester. Deep into second semester, did I feel like I got there at all?

Abby Power 18:18
How about the freshman year roommate. Just really quickly, the three of you will go. Nina Lily, Michael, did you choose your roommate? Did you go random? How important was that relationship, and are you still friends with your freshman roommate?

Nina 18:35
So I chose my roommate, and I kind of, I found her on on Instagram, because my high school and a couple of the other ones, kind of in the area would do the like, you know, class of 2020 whatever. What was I 2022 like college Instagram. And so I just kind of coincidentally found, like a friend of a friend who was going to the same place, and we kind of got coffee a few times in person, which was very fortunate, because we were in the same state, and then decided to be roommates. And that relationship, I would say, was, like, very important, just because we were so close and because it did go well. And I do still talk to my roommate and we’re still friends, but I do. I will just say quickly I do know a lot of people who you know either went random or even picked their roommate, and it was not the best relationship, and they still kind of survived. And so I will say it’s it’s great if it works out, but if it doesn’t, there are definitely kind of other paths, and it’s kind of not the end of the world. Yeah?

Abby Power 19:39
Well said, Lily, how about you?

Lily 19:41
Yeah, so I went completely random, and my roommate and I ended up being kind of like a perfect fit for each other, which is awesome. We were both kind of on the quieter side, and had similar routines, which is really nice, similar to what Nina said. I did definitely hear about a lot of like roommate horror stories, but I also think it’s. Something that’s kind of talked about fondly by older students about their freshman year, about, like the freshman year roommate experience and stuff like that and that they all, I think, like look back on it fondly now, which I think is really interesting. Being

Abby Power 20:16
able to reflect on it after the pain is gone is probably a productive thing to do. How about you? Michael,

Michael 20:23
well, then I met my roommate through the UVA housing portal. So we just filled out, like, a quick, like survey about a living habits, I guess, and then it matched you. And then, like, we gave, we gave each other our contact information through the portal, and then we started texting. And after like, a little bit of texting, we decided we were both normal, normal people, and we went, you know, we said, let’s do it. And it worked. Like your roommate doesn’t need to be your best friend. Just, I just wanted to make sure I had, like, a normal person who was going to be living with, and he was, and it was great. And, yeah, didn’t want to do the whole, like Instagram roommate dating thing. So I was very happy with the way it worked

Abby Power 21:02
out three different ways. Okay, that’s pretty who knew?

Stefanie Forman 21:06
So, Michael, you just touched on this, and Nina touched on this earlier as well. So did, I mean, maybe you did or didn’t use it. Nina did use it for to help find her roommate. But did you talk to people on social media in general before you started school, and how helpful was that we’ll, we’ll go in reverse order this time. So Michael Lily and then Nina.

Michael 21:29
I did not, I had no desire to talk to anybody on social media before, because I was like, I’m not going to make friends with you on like freaking Instagram chats. So I just did not even for a second indulge that I like it.

Lisa Bleich 21:46
That’s not right back.

Sounds right back? That’s on brand for you.

Stefanie Forman 21:51
Um, yeah, Lily, what about you?

Lily 21:53
I definitely did some. I would say I was mostly an observer. We would have these group chats with like, as many people in our grade as you could fit in one group chat, like on Instagram and Snapchat, and then like, the same five people would be talking. And I remember being like, we had like, admitted students day, and those, like, that group of kids, like, all hung out with each other in person on admitted students day. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, there’s already friend groups. Like, people have already found their friends like, Now none of those people are friends anymore. So I think that definitely says a lot about like, how you know what you’re perceiving is not actually what’s going on in that just being in school and taking classes and doing fun things is how you’re going to make friends. Yeah,

Stefanie Forman 22:37
for sure. Yeah. Nina, maybe

Nina 22:39
you can elaborate and let you said earlier, yeah, no, honestly, other than finding my roommate, I did not really talk to anyone over social media. I kind of felt the same way. I didn’t want to just kind of base it off of like texting. When I felt like one, I’d forget and not really even recognize the person when I saw them, and two, it just like, didn’t feel real. So, yeah,

Lisa Bleich 23:02
was there something that any of you would rather forget about freshman year? Not,

Michael 23:08
yeah, not even a surgery itself was so bad. Just like, like, what happened after that? Not being able to play soccer was really bad for my mental health. And, you know, like, the first couple weeks, I wasn’t supposed to do any real activity. So that was horrible for, you know, social like life and whatever. So yeah, that period was not fun eating, like the meal exchange chicken fingers in my room, like three times a day was not a period that I want to remember. So yeah, I

Lily 23:38
had this Spanish teacher, who she was known to be, like, the hardest teacher in the department, and she I ended up getting a, like, a fine grade in the class, but in the process, she was giving me all these horrible grades on my exams. And instead of kind of, I remember, I’d freak out, I’d panic. I’d be like, crying on the phone with my parents, and I’d be like, I’m gonna have to drop out of school, like, I don’t know what’s just, like, completely overreacted thing. And I think I would want to forget that and try to, if I could go back, I would definitely try to be more rational and realize that, like, these professors aren’t trying to, like, screw you over anything. Like they’re, you’re going to be fine. Like they’re trying to help you. They’re,

Stefanie Forman 24:19
yeah, yeah.

Lisa Bleich 24:20
Good advice, I

Nina 24:22
would say I have, like, actually forgotten how bad the dining hall was the second half of the year. Like the first half, it was fine. By the second half, I think everyone was just so sick. It would it, like, turned into kind of the same meals over and over. And I just remember being like, I cannot eat pineapple and Greek yogurt again for breakfast. And I haven’t actually since then. So

Abby Power 24:43
yeah, this is changing topics just a little bit, but in terms of your social life, is it mostly on campus, or do you spend time off campus? Also, we’re trying to get an idea of just in general. At a small, medium and large school, just how your time is balanced from a social perspective, and if you think it’s important to get off campus, yeah,

Michael 25:08
pretty much all on campus. Like, I really didn’t leave campus that much at all, maybe, like, I went to downtown twice to the movie theater and, like, that’s a bad like, we I, you know, nobody else has a car, really. So all my activities were were on campus, and I expect it’ll be like similar next year also. So,

Lily 25:31
yeah, something I love about Wesleyan is that housing is on campus all four years, and everyone’s super close together. And nobody really leaves campus unless you have, like, an actual reason to there’s a little town that’s like a 10 minute walk away, so people like, walk there and get food sometimes, but it’s not really like, even then you’re not really leaving campus, like, you’re still gonna see people everywhere and so close. It’s

Nina 25:54
a little different for me, because we have kind of like Evanston, but we also have Chicago, and it’s not too far away. And so I would say I definitely spend most of my time, like in Evanston on campus, but I definitely do go to Chicago, like, a few times a month, and I think it’s nice to, you know, build connections and everything on campus, but to have the opportunity to kind of go to a larger city, if it’s nearby, just because it kind of changes up the experience. I don’t know it’s just, it’s nice to kind of have something a little different thinking about

Stefanie Forman 26:27
freshman orientation. Like, how did you feel like your school did a really good job with orientation? Is there anything you would change? I

Lily 26:36
think orientation was great for, like, establishing, like, I was like, Okay, I at least know like 10 people and like, I can recognize like, 10 people’s faces, which was great. I do think it was definitely, it definitely scared me a little bit, like, they’re really hard on the plagiarism stuff. I remember, in a way that was, like, even if you didn’t try to plagiarize and you accidentally did plagiarize, you’re gonna get kicked out of school. So I definitely would say, like, obviously, don’t plagiarize, but they are trying to scare you a little bit and not to be like, super overwhelmed. Yeah, and I’d say that it was a pretty good experience. But definitely, I think, like Nina said, every earlier, it’s like, nothing like what the rest of school is really going to feel like,

Stefanie Forman 27:19
that’s interesting, that that’s the takeaway, that that was the scare tactic, plagiarism.

Michael 27:25
I thought orientation was a waste of time. I really don’t remember anything about it, except for, like, taking my classes. Yeah, I mean, like, we did drive down whatever, six hours to Charlottesville. They were there for, like, I was there for a day and a half, like a day, or whatever. For me, I get like, for me, I don’t. I grew up going to NBA. I have a lot of family who went there, so I already knew what the school was. I maybe there’s things that would be more useful for somebody else. Didn’t really do anything for me. So yeah, it was, I didn’t meet any, like, I don’t didn’t meet anybody. It was just a waste of time for me.

Stefanie Forman 28:01
So you don’t even have any suggestions. You just you wanted to dive right in. You didn’t even want an orientation. Yeah,

Michael 28:09
pretty much

Nina 28:12
our orientation was structured really well, because we also had the like 10 people. And I don’t know if this is a common thing that most schools do, but we have like the 10 people that we were in a, like our orientation group with, we also had a class with for the whole first quarter. And so that was just really nice, because it was, it wasn’t just like a week long connection that we formed with those people, but it was kind of like a whole quarter and it was like our first kind of like class together. And so that was really nice. I can’t say that I’m really friends with and most of them anymore, but in the moment, it was great to, just like Lily said, have that group, and then keep seeing them kind of in a structured environment, definitely helped. But yeah, they do kind of tell you a lot of things, and it’s just kind of a chaotic week, because everyone is just trying to meet as many people as possible. So if you don’t find your best friend first week. I think that’s a pretty common experience. Let’s

Lisa Bleich 29:03
talk a little bit about what you guys are involved with in like activities outside of academics. So I know you mentioned you’re involved in a fraternity for Michael, I know Lily, you’re doing some pretty fun stuff. So Lily, you want to start off telling us what you’re doing and and then everyone and then we can go around. Yeah,

Lily 29:23
so I do stand up comedy, improv and sketch comedy at Wesleyan, which is a lot of fun. It’s nothing I ever thought I’d be doing ever. I kind of just saw people doing and I was like, That looks fun. I’m gonna audition. And then I ended up getting really into it, which is a lot of fun. I’m also, I’m also in a fraternity. We have co Ed fraternities at Wesleyan, so mine is, it’s like a literary society fraternity type thing, but it’s a lot of fun. And then I also write for my school newspaper. I’ve been working on, like the satire section, as well as to doing some features and opinions.

Abby Power 29:57
Would you say that through those. Organizations is where you’ve made most of your friends?

Lily 30:02
Yeah, I made a lot of friends through the comedy stuff I’ve been doing. I also I lived in a community based housing where, which is where I made a lot of my friends. It was like, themed after, like, diversity and inclusion. Oh,

Michael 30:19
yeah. So my two biggest involvements are the student newspaper. So I write sports for the CAV daily. I’m a Senior Associate Editor as the title, I cover the men lacrosse team this spring, which was really cool. And then I’m covering soccer in the fall and winter, sorry, basketball in the winter, which will be awesome. But, you know, so the student newspaper, and then club soccer, which is great. And then also I’m in the fraternity, and I’m interning at the Brody Jewish center next year. So those are my things I’m involved

Nina 30:53
in. I’m in, like, a co Ed business fraternity, and then a couple other business clubs that are kind of just like targeted towards that, just because Northwestern doesn’t have undergraduate business, and so a lot of that is kind of through clubs and like teaching each other. And then I’m in, I’m on club tennis, which love doing that. That was a great decision. I highly recommend, kind of joining as many different groups as you can. So I’m also in, like an alumni group that’s kind of, like to help with student engagement. And then my sorority,

Lisa Bleich 31:26
you travel a lot with club tennis. Do go to different, like, play with different schools?

Nina 31:32
Um, other people do, but I do not. I kind of just the great thing about club tennis at Northwestern is it’s, it’s very big. Um, there are, like, four teams, and so you can, like, choose to try out for the, like, eight people that they bring, or you can kind of just practice. And so I love just being able to practice and kind of go and I want, and actually, randomly, like, one of my best friends is on the club tennis team, and I’m actually living with her this summer, like, off campus. That’s kind of why, like joining even the business clubs that I’m in, a case I’m in like, three different business clubs. There are completely different people in all of them, and so I just recommend joining as many different things as you kind of can. And now, like, because I’m a sophomore, I’ve had more time to kind of develop into those clubs, but I have close friends in all of them, and so I highly recommend doing things that you’re interested in, because then you’ll meet other people who have the same interests, and it’s a lot easier to make friends that way. Yeah,

Abby Power 32:24
that actually transitions really well into our final question. So Nina, I’ll let you kind of go first and build on that, but we are looking for your greatest piece of wisdom for rising college freshmen. So what do you wish that you had known? And if you had the chance to tell your rising freshman self, what piece of advice would you give? And one of the things you just said, you know, joining as many things as you can and following your interests makes total sense. Anything else that you wish you’d known that you would tell, tell our clients who are about to embark on the college experience. This

Nina 33:03
is going to sound kind of stupid, but I would just say, take a deep breath like it will kind of all be okay. And the more time you spend kind of freaking out and then getting lost in being like this isn’t perfect, the longer it takes for you to be able to join as many things as possible, to kind of work up the courage to go to office hours and to kind of do all those things. And so I think the sooner that you’re kind of able to accept or kind of go in with the mindset that it’s not all going to be perfect, and that’s okay, and it will eventually kind of work out, the easier the transition will be. And I really wish that I had done that because, you know, honestly, it’s a lesson that I kind of have to keep learning over and over and honestly, yeah, it’s all going to be okay. You don’t have to be perfect. It’s really best to just kind of focus on meeting as many people as you can and not putting too much academic pressure on yourself, going up, talking to your teachers. I wish that I had also taken more advantage of office hours. That’s something I didn’t really do until second semester, and your professors are really there to support you. That’s why they have that time is for you to come in and ask questions. And I’ve had so many great conversations with professors that have kind of turned out to be some of my favorite classes just because I went in and asked a question, it kind of takes admitting to yourself, like, I’m not perfect and it’s okay to be able to go in and ask questions and do all of these things. And so yeah, that would kind of be my all encompassing piece of advice.

Abby Power 34:34
Amazing, amazing. Yeah.

Lily 34:36
I mean, I would say that you really are, like, starting from the beginning and starting anew. And so you can kind of do anything you want, and, like, try things you never tried before. Like, I almost didn’t try out for any of the comedy stuff because I was really scared, and I’m really glad I did, because that’s such a big part of my life at school now. And just that, like, if you embarrass yourself in the first month of school, like, no. Is going to remember that, like, there’s so many people like, take the opportunity to really, like, try new things, and it’ll probably work out and be amazing. Yeah,

Abby Power 35:11
fantastic.

Michael 35:13
It’s to not worry as much about, like, making the all the right choices, all the all the time, if that makes sense, like not thinking about all the things that you want to do or should be think you should be doing, and listen to, like, what you actually want to do sometimes, because I feel like I came into college thinking of, you know, oh, I need to do X, Y and Z to, you know, make myself or set myself up for, you know, a good life at school. But you know, sometimes you just want to, like, sit on the couch and, you know, watch TV or whatever, and that’s good so too. So listen to what you actually want to be doing sometimes.

Lisa Bleich 35:54
Yeah, that’s really great advice.

Abby Power 35:57
I like this collective wisdom.

Stefanie Forman 35:59
I know it’s very welcome.

Lisa Bleich 36:01
It really is. Well, thank you guys so much, Lily, Michael, and Nina for coming on to College Bound Mentor, and thank you CBMers for tuning in. To catch more episodes of College Bound Mentor, make sure to Follow or Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast. To learn more, visit CollegeBoundMentor.com Until next time, you got this!