Opening Thoughts

My friends, welcome to the Experience Iowa blog page. Let me introduce myself. My name is Sam; I’m a second-year Psychology and English and Creative Writing (Publishing Track) double major. This is my second year of doing the Experience Iowa blog; I wanted to come back and give advice as a returning student learning a little bit more about campus to help you future Hawkeyes out. I will talk about Move In, On Iowa! Week, On Iowa! Leadership, and Starting Classes.

Move In

This is the second time I’d be moving into the dorms; I lived in the dorms my first year as a part of the Iowa Writers Living Learning Community. I’m back in the dorms this year with my same freshman roommate. I lived in Stanley for my first year, and now I’m living in Currier for my second year. I knew what would happen with move-in because I’ve been through it before. This year was a little different because I moved onto campus before all of the freshmen. Usually, freshmen can move onto campus way earlier than returning students (except for Resident Assistants). However, this was different for me because I helped as a leader at the orientation week called On Iowa! Week. The campus was quiet other than some other On Iowa! leaders moving into the dorms. We had about 6 hours to move my stuff into the dorm. Overall, it was a very chill move-in day.

On Iowa! Leaders

I’ve been throwing around the On Iowa! Leaders program, but I haven’t talked much, so let’s talk about it. On Iowa! Leaders is a volunteer program that, seconds and up, can help welcome freshmen and transfer students onto campus. Since we’ve already been on campus, it’s a great way to help ease the freshmen and transfers into campus. We can help volunteer at On Iowa! events like silent disco and bingo, and we can give students some great advice on how to keep each other safe on campus. We also get to help with getting the freshmen over to this event called Kickoff at Kinnick, which kind of kicks off the welcoming to campus in general.

Being able to be a part of welcoming new people onto campus is something I wish I had gotten a bit more of in my freshmen year of college. I plan on helping out my third year as well, so you future Hawkeyes, if you recognize me, then come and ask me for some advice on how to succeed on campus.

On Iowa! Week

I’ll give a brief summary of what exactly On Iowa! Week is. It’s the week before classes start, which is a way to welcome the new freshmen class and transfer students on campus. It only happens at the beginning of the Fall semester (the start of an average school year), and there are multiple events during the week where people can meet new people, network, and have fun overall. That’s how I met most of my friend group and others in my program. It’s just like a big party to welcome our new family members. This is such a fun event that I recommend trying to attend as many events as possible. There is always something for everyone.

Starting Classes

Classes started long ago; that’s why this post is so late in the month. The first week of classes was great, but then they became real. Most of my classes this semester are for my majors (Psychology and English and Creative Writing Publishing Track), so I’m having a lot of fun with most of the material. Still, both of my majors are different in the workload. Being able to balance my social and school is becoming a little bit of a struggle this year, but slowly, I’ve been falling into a rhythm of a 50/50 balance. This is the most challenging semester I’ve had, and it will only get more complicated from here. Yet, going into week 5, I’m feeling good about most of my classes.

Closing Thoughts

So far, returning to school and being back on campus has been a great time. I still can’t believe I’ve only been at college for a year, but it is such an experience that I think you guys will love Iowa. This is such a great campus, and one thing we always do for students is involve everyone. We make sure that you have a community within the university. So overall, move-in day was good; being an On Iowa! leader was one of the most incredible things to do, and classes are becoming more challenging. Thank you for reading this post; I hope my experiences can help you see that this campus is just a fantastic campus filled with love and community. Hope you all have a wonderful day, week, month, and year!