Advice for new freshmen!!!

deenierah
Thu, 10 May 2007 00:51:27 +0000

This year:
-go to your HS a day or two before school starts, with your schedule if at all possible, and familiarize yourself. find your classes, figure out where the caf/library/gym/theatre is, etc. makes it much easier in the first week. (grab a HS kid you know, they’ll probably be happy to give you the tour.)

-get INVOLVED! join clubs/organizations that seem interesting, and spend a good chunk of your year figuring out what you like. i had friends who went into HS intending to do theatre and have now done three seasons of sports each year. this is an amazing chance to try everything out.
-on a related note, go with the flow socially-- some of the most annoying kids freshman year were the ones who didn’t speak to anyone who WASN’T in their old group of friends. you will meet new people, and your circle of friends will change. let this happen. there are some amazing friendships to be made. and often, if you do drift apart from people, you’ll reconnect later on.

-don’t worry about being ‘cool’…you WILL, i promise, look back at yourself in six months or a year and go, ‘oh my god, i was such a freshman.’

-work, but don’t freak out about academics yet.

other stuff:
-DEFINITELY get your license ASAP. go online, check out your state’s driving laws, and start going to driver’s ed as soon as you possibly can.

-get in the habit of getting sleep. don’t spend hours screwing around on facebook/cc/whatever.

-do fun things on weekends! personally, i can’t bring myself to work on fridays/saturdays-- i set those aside for going out for meals/shows, shopping, seeing friends, unwinding, and so on.

-do stuff on your own that makes you THINK: read poetry, learn about string theory, watch classic black-and-white movies…anything. there are times that HS can be very frustrating and not intellectually stimulating, and learning SOMETHING interesting on your own is a nice thing.

-learn the art of looking like you’re paying attention while playing sudoku or doing homework in class. very important.