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Thursday, March 28, 2024
NEWS  |  CAMPUS

Freshmen ask, seniors answer: How to survive the first year of college

FL Fans
FL Fans

Ah, freshmen year. It’s the year you develop study habits, spend entirely too much time on “recommended” course materials and adjust to life without your parents watching your every move. It can be a confusing time, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be.

You can get the best advice on Gainesville's social scene and receive tips to navigate your academics from a student who has already been there. If you’re a freshman who wants to have the most successful freshman year possible, ask a senior how it’s done by submitting questions through this form. A UF senior will provide a response in the next edition of “Freshmen ask, seniors answer.”

In the meantime, here are Jessica's "Freshmen 15" tips to get you started:

1. Pick a major. How about entomology and nematology? Or geomatics? Don’t know what those are? Don’t sweat it; you’ll probably change your major by October anyway.

2. Buy laundry detergent. Your mom is going to need it when you come home with three months worth of dirty clothes.

3. Speaking of your mom, call her. She’s worried sick about you – and your whites and darks.

4. Prepare your interesting fact for the inescapable first-class icebreaker. “Hi, my name is Jessica, and something cool about me is that.... I have two cats?” is always a winner.

5. Go ahead and take that extra three-credit class. You're at UF now. I’m looking at you, Man’s Food.

6. Wear your best Gators gear to class. The professor will say, “Who can answer this question? How about you? You, in the orange and blue shirt?” You and the other 149 similarly outfitted students in the class are now off the hook.

7. Acquire a taste for Wendy’s and McDonald’s. High-class meals like Olive Garden are a thing of the tasty, parent-funded past, my friends.

8. Get to know your roommates, suitemates and bathroom-mates. Recycle suggested introduction from No. 4.

9. Take a break from taking a break from studying.

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10. Figure out how the Bright Futures scholarship works. And once you have, explain it to me. I am 100 percent confused by it, or am I only 75 percent confused?

11. Purchase textbooks.

12. Purchase prosthetic arm and leg.

13. Prove your intellectual prowess by passing Organic Chemistry 1 or by finding a parking spot on campus after 7:30 a.m.

14. Become a student athlete. We’re short on recruits.

15. Relax. College is only as hard as you make it.*

*Unless you’re an entomology and nematology or geomatics major. Then it’s much harder.

Welcome to The Gator Nation, Baby Gators, and best of luck navigating Turlington Plaza. Only a select few students have ever figured that one out.

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