Gustavus Adolphus College Top Questions

College has been so important to helping me push my limits and challenge myself. Starting college was a completely new experience for me and really put me out of my comfort zone. Being away from my family was very difficult at first, but it forced me to meet new people and make new friends that I can rely on. Another thing that I have gotten out of my college experience is the ability to accept people for who they are and to recognize the fact that I can't change them. Meeting all of these new people opened my eyes to many new opinions about the world and what goes on in it. I have learned that it is okay to have your own opinions and to be able to respectfully disagree with someone else's while accepting this as their point of view. College has been so valuable to me in teaching me to become my own person with my own voice. It has allowed me to conquer many of my fears, and it has forced me to push myself to my limits. All of my experiences so far will help me to define who I really am.

As a college freshman, if I could go back and talk to myself as a high school senior I would tell myself to be ready, the transition is quite the change. Advanced Placement classes will help prepare you for the course work that you will recieve in college, but don't think that you will immediately know how to manage everything. Take time to learn how to manage your time. Focus on your studies, but still try to make time for extra-curricular activites. Don't bite off more than you can chew, better to do too little and keep your grades up for the first semester than be on overload. And most of all, as cliche as it may be, be yourself. You will find a group of people who appreciate you for who you are, don't change to please a group of people who don't even like you in the first place.

Make sure you know what fits you: campus size, class size, housing. I found out the hard way that attending a larger campus with larger class sizes was not the fit for me. I need my class sizes to be a lot smaller in order to concentrate and feel like I'm involved. Also, being at a smaller campus allows yourself to get to know others (both students and staff) at a more personal level. At bigger campuses, you are sometimes just a number and might not feel like you are important. Also, make sure the campus you are staying at have residential halls or apartments that suit you! Some campus dorm rooms are very small and make one feel clostrophobic.

Prioritize. Sometimes it can be difficult to balance your life once you start University. There are so many different types of activities going on, on campus. There will be facilities there that you will want to use on a regular basis, an example being the gym. You will be attending classes, working a part-time job and be involved in many church activities. It will be difficult to balance your life unless you prioritize it. Find enough time to study, work and worship every day. Only after you have completed the things that are essential should you continue on with the things that are less important, but enjoyable. Campus activities are a great way to meet new people and to socialize, but if you haven?t completed your homework you shouldn?t be attending. The entire purpose you are at school is to earn a degree. Spending time at a dance or a sporting event is not as important as studying. Study/work should always come before play. It is a hard thing to do, to prioritize and to be disciplined enough to follow a schedule. Yet if you do it, you will have less stress and better grades.

I would tell myself to take more AP classes. I would want to do this so that I would have more credits transfering into college my first year. This could have saved me a lot of time and money. I would have been able to take less generals and focus on my major more quickly. I also would have possibly been able to graduate sooner which means I would be saving much more money on tuition fees.

You are ready. You have been contemplating the college decision for years. You have worked hard and often done better than most others believed you could. The only thing you are lacking now is confidence. Stop worrying about the decisions others are making and don't let them make you second-guess yourself. People are going to tell you that college is so grueling that your main focus that first year will be survival. Don't listen to them. Of course it will be difficult, being away from your family and friends and having to meet all new people. The classes won't exactly be a walk in the park either. But you can and will do it. As cheesy as it sounds, this is where the life you want begins. Here is where you lay the groundwork. There is a reason for me being so straightforward. I don't want you to hold back when you start school. I want you to know that it will be hard, but it will be worth it. Work hard, stay true to your beliefs, live in the moment, but keep one eye on the horizon. We'll talk again in four years.

Shakespeare said it well: ?There is more in the world than you have dreamt of in all your philosophies, high school self.? Ok, well Hamlet was talking to Horatio, not that poor adolescent version of myself with a limited imagination. I entered college with great plans?I had loved English in high school and planned to keep loving it all the way to a career. It wasn't until I'd been around the liberal-arts block a few times (and snagged myself an English minor in the process) that I knew how much more was out there! Our options in high school tend to be limited to the basics: history, science, and yes, English. Making a career choice is a ?choose one, fill in the bubble? affair?doctor, teacher, lawyer. But college taught me how expansive the ?other? option is. So I say to my high school self and to all the hopeful and frightened prospective students out there to break out of that box. Don't pin yourself down just yet. There's so much more out there to hope for!

If i could go back in time, there would be many things I would warn myself about. As a senior I felt as if i was on top. I had a heavy load of classes, but I could have tried harder. I got very caught up in the social part of school and slacked off. I would tell myself to get motivated and get prepared for college. I did not apply for many scolarships either, and I now see that was a mistake. I am now paying for those mistakes that I made. I would also tell myself to not take anything for granted, because having to take care of myself was a big change. The responisbility was much greater in college then when living with my parents.

If I could go back in time and talk to myself as a senior in high school, I would inform my younger self on the many things to be prepared to deal with the moment he set foot on campus. One of the most important things I would tell my younger self is that those who tell him that the first-semester of college is extremely difficult are not lying at all. So in order to avoid the stresses of the first semester in college, I would inform my younger self that he should go into college ready to do a lot of studying because that is the foundation for any amount of academic success achieved in college. Furthermore, I would inform the younger me that from the moment he steps on campus he should immediately start looking for extracurricular activities and clubs that interest him, then join them so that he can live out the full experience of his first year in college. Then, I would inform him of the professors and classes that he should take that would interest him the most so that he does well in them and obtains a lot of knowledge from those classes.

If I could go back in time and talk to myself as a high school senior I would tell myself to stay calm. College is hard, but it is bearable and at the same time it is a lot of fun. I was incredibly worried about going to a prestigous school with a good reputation and now I know that it really doesn't matter. While I love my small college that I attend, I know that I also could be happy at a big university or even attending community college. Everybody's paths are different, and as long as we stay positive everything will be fine. I was too caught up in proving that I was smart; I felt like being accepted to a good school would prove that. The most important thing that I would tell myself if I went back in time is this: Do what makes you happy.