Sarah

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone is doing well with their classes so far. I’m still trying to find the right rooms and figure out the room organization. The streets are a lot busier and the dining halls are certainly more full. You can definitely tell who the freshman are by who is 30 minutes early for a class (yes, I’m one of them). I think everyone is just so worried about being late that they think they have to be there extra early.

Getting to class early definitely helps getting to know people though. It gives you time to look around and see if you recognize anyone and introduce yourself to someone new. I’ve even met a few people that were on my floor but I hadn’t met yet.

Things I’ve Learned So Far:

• Order/ Buy books before class starts. I know a lot of people want to wait to make sure that they need the books, but in a one of my classes the bookstore sold out of the book. Now people are scrambling to find a book that, of course, is a custom edition that can’t be bought online. In another one of my classes, the publishing company is switching editions, therefor it has stopped shipping the 6th edition but the bookstore is waiting to receive the 7th edition.
• Look at your schedule, write down the room number and building somewhere you can easily access it while walking. It really will make your life easier. After a great laugh with my roommate and her friend (her friend wrote down the office number instead of class room), we realized you really need to write down the room number and be able to pull it out of a pocket instead of digging through your bag for your schedule when you finally find the right building(like I did).
• Schedule time to eat. As I learned today, waiting to eat/drink anything until 5:00pm because of class location, makes you dehydrated (major headache) and very hungry. I had two classes around lunch time in the same building, so I figured I’d just wait to eat. Not realizing I had another class right after that, I rushed off to the next class with no food. Definitely make time for breakfast too. They have great coffee in the dining hall and fresh fruit that makes the morning so much better.
• Do NOT plan your classes 10 minutes apart. Unless the buildings are really close and you know exactly where the rooms are to know the fastest way out and in. Today I had two classes that were ten minutes apart and quite a ways apart. By the time I arrived at my next lecture, I had 3 minutes to spare and had to sit at the way back where I couldn’t see the projection screen half the time because of all the heads. Tomorrow, I get to run from the College of Nursing Center (West Side) to the Adler Journalism and Mass Communications Building (East Side) in 10 minutes. Luckily, I was able to switch my group for Engineering Problem Solving because then I would have added a Seamans Center (East Side) to the time right before the Nursing Building.
• Don’t freak out too soon. A lot of classes can sound really scary the first day and make you want to rethink your major. But from what I’ve gone through so far, the second day is usually better. Instead of the quick explanation of EVERYTHING the class will cover (it sounds really overwhelming, trust me), the professor will usually start to explain the details that you actually need to know right away on the second day of class. It just makes it really hard when there’s homework the first day and you feel like you have no idea what’s going on.
• Be organized. Everyone likes to think they’re organized, then they come to college. I’m still working on my paper management, book organization, and how to keep track of things. Right now, I have two assignment notebooks. One for scheduling, like when I have class, meetings I have to go to, hanging out with friends, and events going on. The other one is for actual assignments: homework and reading. These assignment notebooks are also color-coded so I can look at a color and know what class the assignment is for(that’s the idea anyway). It’s been working out pretty well so far. I just need to see how the teachers assign the reading to know how to write the due date. Some professors go by weeks for due dates and some go by a specific day.
• Talk to the professor. If you don’t want to ask in front of a huge lecture hall of people, talk to them after class or go to office hours. Main question to ask: do I have to bring the book? Do you really want to haul all three chemistry books around with you all day until you have that class? Some classes don’t use the books in class, some use it depending on whether it’s a lecture, discussion, or lab time. For example, my chemistry book(the great big one) doesn’t have to go to any class. So the only time I have to drag my book along is if I go somewhere to study, in which case that book will be the only one I take. However, my Engineering Problem Solving II book, which covers programming has tips and bits of computer code to help you start different assignments. Which means, that book will be going with me to every class(luckily it’s smaller than the Chemistry book). Asking the professor if you’ll use the book in class will make your bag feel a lot lighter and help you be prepared for class.

I think that’s all for now. I know I’ll have more later. This week is a major learning week, both in and out of the classroom. The nice thing is: there’s about 4,500 freshman going through the same thing I am 🙂

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012 at 8:00 am and is filed under Academics, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.