First time post but I have been a fan of this site for along long time. Getting ready to start my college adventure and Im a lil nervous. Moving into Linden Hall tmrw morning and rooming with one of my closer friends from high school. Majoring in Ag Business and Economics. Ik there was a similar thread about this topic about a month ago but I was wondering if anyone had any last minute words of wisdom or if anyone had any advice about Linden Hall specifically??
First of all, be social. While the advertised main reason for going to college is obviously for studies and to get a degree, one of the unadvertised reasons is to basically network with people and to form 'relationships' with new people. You'll come to realize sometime how important networking is in the real world.
It is a ridiculous environment to meet people, especially when you live in dorms. Most people, especially incoming freshman like yourself, are in the same boat. Chances are that they didn't come to ISU already knowing tons of people. They probably either don't know anybody or they only know a few people. If you did come to ISU already knowing a ton of people, don't spend all of your time hanging out with them. Meet new people. Absolutely no joke there. You will realize you're screwed after awhile if you just hang out with people you already know. Leave your door open sometimes too in the dorms. People will look into an open door and if you're there doing something and look at them, they might come in and meet you.
Second, join a club or two or three. You'll again, meet tons of people who share your interests. If there isn't a club for something you want, find another person or two who shares the interest and make your own club. I did that and it can be fun as hell (and some work sometimes) and I can't tell you how much it helped me in getting my job after college too.
Oh, also if you get homesick, then stop being a ***** and deal with it. Going home every weekend is going to **** you over. I know a few people who did this and completely missed out on **** on weekends at college. So tell your parents if they miss you, to take a hike at least until Thanksgiving, because you have a life to start building and you aren't going to move as fast if you keep coming back to their place every weekend. I dated this girl shortly my sophomore year who did this, and it completely ****ed up our relationship. I did research with a few professors for a few years at ISU too, and one of them told me once she had a pipeline to Goldman Sachs in NYC. GS told her "Send us a few resumes and we'll hire a few as interns for a summer." Guess what? She told me nobody wanted to do it because it was "too far from home." They even thought Chicago was too far from home. Turning down an opportunity at Goldman Sachs in NYC or Chicago because it's too far from home? Extremely sad..
If you like music and stuff, check out the random music acts popping up at the M Shop (is it still called that) and other places. If you love music, look at getting a radio DJing job at KURE. You can pretty much pick your own format and play whatever you want as long as there's no swearing in it (although sometimes you can get away with it). Radio DJing was really fun.
At least how I viewed it was, it was a time for expansion and growth as a person. You are going to learn some stuff about yourself by doing this stuff you might not learn if you just sit in your room with yourself/a few people playing video games or watching TV. Schoolwork sucks sometimes, and sometimes it's actually fun, but remember while you need to maintain your grades, you are at college for way more reasons than to just attend class. Maintain a healthy balance between schoolwork and your social life.
Seriously, whenever I think back to my time at ISU, the first thing that comes to mind isn't school but is all the good times I had away from class and with meeting all the new people, expanding myself, etc. I'm not going to lie, I have a pretty good life for myself now after college, but everytime I think about ISU I get a little nostalgic an think "God damn, those were some amazing years." In some ways, I wish I could relive a few years of college.
So go out, meet new people, be social, learn about **** you don't know about, have a good time but don't flunk out of school. As someone said too, "Don't be a fool, wrap your tool." Awesome advice. :smile::smile: