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What I Learned in My First Semester of College

So I just finished up my first semester of college like literally yesterday. And I learned quite a few things during it so I thought I would share them with you.

1. You pretty much live in sweatpants/leggings. No fucking joke. I wore leggings or sweatpants almost everyday. First of all, I had yoga on Monday and Wednesday mornings and had another class right after so I didn't change. Most mornings I would just wake up and put a bra on, put my shoes on, brush my hair and teeth, put deodorant and body spray on and leave.

2. College classes are sometimes easier than high school classes. Especially big ass lectures. Those classes that have like 200 or more people may seem scary and daunting if you're used to small ass classes (like my high school had). But they're so easy. There's so many people and a lot of them are at different learning levels so those huge lecture halls classes, particularly the ones that are 100 or 200 level courses, are easy so that they can accommodate for everyone's learning level.

3. Some people will tell you don't need to read the textbook. In some classes you don't. My health sciences class I didn't read it really. I mostly skimmed it. In my psychology and anatomy & physiology classes I did read the textbook thoroughly.

4. Don't slack off your first semester thinking you'll have time to make up for it later. This goes for my high school too. This didn't happen to me personally. But one of my friends just didn't do shit this semester and her GPA is looking like it's going to be like a 2.8. We need to maintain a 3.2 for one of our scholarships and a 3.0 for the other. They don't just kick people out of the program right away, but she's getting her ass put on probation

5. Writing professional emails isn't as important as high school teachers make it seem like it is. I have a friend who is political science major hoping to go to law school. She emailed the person in charge of the law school admissions because they are also the person in charge of the academic law fraternity on campus, and my friend applied to get into the fraternity. Well, she spent an hour crafting the email to the admissions for the fraternity and they literally responded with "Yeah!!" It's a law professor guys. She responded with "Yeah!!" Professional emails aren't that important all the time. Don't stress over them. Make them a bit formal. Like don't act like you're friends with them, but don't stress over the perfect words for an email when the professor might just respond with one fucking word.

6. One thing true teachers said in high school is that no one but yourself is responsible for holding yourself accountable. College professors don't care if you skip class. Sometimes they may not even know your name. They won't have a problem failing you so don't fucking slack. Actually try. You're paying thousands of dollars for your education. Actually learn.

7. A lot of people grew up privileged as hell and fucking spoiled. I'm not saying that I'm not privileged. Obviously I am because 1. I have full ride scholarships for my undergrad, 2. I'm actually in college, and numerous other reasons. I wouldn't say that I'm that spoiled either. What I mean by this is that some people literally had their parents do fucking everything. People don't know how to do their own fucking laundry. Washing clothes isn't that fucking hard. Literally, take my roommate for example. She didn't know how to do laundry. All you do is put your clothes and detergent in the washer and press start. Also, she doesn't fucking clean EVER. So either her parents had to fucking tell her when to clean or she's never had to do it.

8. You'll find a few close friends. You don't need a shit ton of friends. I have 3 really close friends (one of them being my boyfriend) that I share almost everything with. I, of course, have other friends that I hang out with. But having only a few close friends will help you have a support system.

9. Having friends that are different majors in fucking fun. My 3 closest friends I just mentioned and I do not share majors or really anything similar. My boyfriend is a computer engineering major. My 2 best girl friends are a chemical engineer major and a political science major. It's nice that they don't have the same major. I work better alone and so do they. We do homework together and are just there to support each other.

10. You will talk to people and have no idea of their name. I'm serious. There are people I see everyday or every few days and have no idea what their names are. If they live in my building, I even know what floor they live on and will press the button for them when they get on with me. You'll also sit down and start talking to someone and 30 minutes into the conversation realize you never asked their name and they never asked yours. So you'll do a weird awkward timed handshake greeting mid conversation.

11. Reading the chapter for a class before you start the chapter will make your life easier. You'll already have a preview of the information and whatever your teacher covers in lecture is the important shit.

12. Take the same gen. eds. as your friends. Unless you don't like the topic. Like if you hate history, maybe try avoiding straight out history classes. But like I'm interested in taking African American History to 1877 for a gen. ed. and my one friend just finished taking the class. She told me I could borrow her book if I take the class. That just saved me fucking money.

13. Buy the textbooks that you'll need for more than one semester. Like if you're taking anatomy & physiology I one semester and anatomy & physiology II the next semester, just buy the fucking book. You'll save money buying the book than renting it for 2 semesters. But if it's a gen. ed. like my Intro to Latin American History course I'm taking in the spring, I'm renting the book for $16 for the semester. If I were to buy it it would cost me a little over $40. But like my anatomy & physiology textbook I bought that 1. because I'm going to need it again when I take Human Gross Anatomy and 2. I needed it for 2 semesters.

14. Always look on Amazon for textbooks first. If you can find it on Amazon it's almost always cheaper than the school bookstore. Also get it used. You don't need a brand fucking new copy of the book. It's already expensive as fuck. The used one is cheaper.

15. Write out all of your due dates and exam dates as soon as you know them. Even those final exams in like 4 months. You'll be much more organized and won't forget your due dates.