yasi

well i transferred in my sophomore year (from steinhardt) so i don't really know much about the scholar program except that they get to travel which is awesome (congrats to him). i guess i wish i had narrowed down my interests more quickly (which i might have had i been in gallatin from the beginning) but i didn't really figure out what i really wanted to focus on until my last year. which was fine, but i could have developed it so much more and gone to more events, films, lectures, club meetings, etc. i guess i would advise him to explore as much as he can but figure out what he loves, and take advantage of all the university and the city have to offer with regards to it. one other thing i would have done was move out of the dorms after freshman or at least sophomore year. they are the same price or more than apartments and you have to share bedrooms and deal with passive-aggressive roommates and drama and whatnot. there's really no advantage besides the social aspect, which pretty much evaporates after the first year or two. what else...i wouldn't have chose florence as my semester abroad, but that's probably a personal preference. OH i definitely would have been more proactive about cultivating relationships with professors. i didn't really get the confidence to approach them (and thus form more personal relationships) until late, but it made all the difference in my experience (and letters of recommendation for grad school..). it's easier in gallatin since the seminars are small but i took a lot of huge CAS lectures too. and i would have done more internships. tell him to get as much out of the experience as he can, gallatin is great, the city is amazing (sooo much more to do than just drink) and the four years fly right by.