New to JHU, trying to familiarize myself

Hi everyone,

I just got accepted into JHU and was just wondering what should I do now. I am a biological science major on a premed pathway and would also like to know everything about it at JHU. Is there any specific programs I should apply to? What should I do to get a summer research opportunity? How can I get an internship?

I am entirely new to the “college world” and I am trying to familiarize as much as possible. Anything would help. I want to know everything about JHU, such as specific terms, locations, do’s and don’ts. Please tell me anything and everything.

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If you have not yet started your freshman year…join some accepted student groups on social media. You will have orientation where a LOT of your questions will be answered.

And then…just relax until you get there. That’s what most college freshmen do.

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Thank you. It was because I messed up my high school freshman year pretty badly because I had no informations on how to do stuff, what class to take, what clubs to join, so I don’t want to repeat that in college, especially at a prestigious school like JHU.

At your orientation, you will likely be assigned an advisor who will help you with classes and the like. There are residence life staff members who live in and work in the dorms. There are tons of student activities and clubs. And you will be four years older than you were when you entered high school!

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JHU has an excellent health professions advising office. I’d venture to say one of the strongest in the country. You should definitely reach out to them once you get to campus. They can help you understand the med school application process and the expectations that med schools hold regarding applicants. The advisors can also recommend summer research programs to apply to and what types of activities you should consider getting involved in.

The HP office at JHU will also be writing your committee letter of recommendation for your med school app, so it’s in your own interest to get to know the advisors there.

However, freshman year is learning about how to be successful academically. There is a learning curve involved that can sometimes be pretty steep. Don’t try to take on too much stuff besides doing well in your coursework at first. It’s harder to fix a broken GPA than it is to add EC hours.

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As everyone is saying, the pre-health advising office at Hopkins is going to be your go-to resource.

I really don’t think you need to be worrying about it yet, but if you want something to look at, they have a very good online resource:

As they suggest, you can just explore the menu of links, which will really cover everything you could conceivably want to know at this point.

So, you can go through a bunch of stuff at your leisure. There will not be a test, you don’t have to understand it all yet or have a plan. But you can start getting familiar with different concepts, terms, opportunities, timelines, and so on. And then when you actually start working with your advisor, you will be ready to launch right into meaningful discussions about the right path for you.