What First Semester Taught Me

 Back at home I am, enjoying food and sleeping more than eight hours every day. It truly feels good to be home, even if there is no snow and it feels colder here than in CT. I am home and I like it!

I am a survivor of the first semester at college. By the end, I was drowning in the load of homework, fighting not to fall asleep and ready for the semester to be over. What a great semester it was and I learned many important lessons:

·         Don’t procrastinate! We all joke about procrastinating and we do it all the time but seeing 2 am because I hadn’t started on something until the last moment didn’t make me happy. I celebrated my 18^th birthday by working until 3 am on an assignment for architecture.

·         Go to sleep! Your body can only pull so many overnighters before it too starts closing down on you. When finals came around and others were prepping for them, I spent the first couple days sleeping 10-12 hours because my body simply wouldn’t get up.

·         Freshman 15 doesn’t happen to everyone. For some, the opposite, they actually lose more pounds than they should. If you’re used to Congolese food like I was, which is more filling, you’re probably not going to gain much by finding alternatives, not so good ones, by not going to the dining hall.

·         Take opportunities given to you. Maybe I traveled way more than I should have this semester but I got to learn so much and see more places in the United States.

·         Don’t work eleven hours, especially two hours every afternoon and one where you can’t do your homework. It seems really cool at the beginning but then when everyone else is doing something, you’re doing homework.

·         Choose classes that interest you! I had a variety of classes that interested me and made my transition to college much easier.

·         Don’t overload yourself! As someone said, you want to get involved but do take some time for yourself.

·         Be open-minded!

·         Be yourself! Don’t feel the need to change your views or hide because you think people will think you are lame or something. People knew I wasn’t into drinking or the frats and so I moved out of the crazy dorm into Smith, to only be surrounded by other cool folks who weren’t into drinking or the frats either.

·         Just because you go to college doesn’t mean you can’t grow in your faith. I looked forward to the various chapel events that I attended weekly because it was my turn to connect with God and block everything else out.

·         Try new things! While I played the violin for many years, I also wanted to try singing. I joined the Gospel choir at Trinity and was pleased with the experience.

·         Take a chance! I took a chance with going to Trinity College without every visiting and I know that I made a smart choice.  

I was a small town girl who left Boise for the big city with a suitcase of dreams and a bunch of junk for college and now, I am back to share with everyone how they prepared me for the great experience that the first semester of college was.