Freshman Advice Thread
- Thread starter GingerNinja
- Start date
best advice someone gave to my brother was "drink some beer and smoke some weed, but don't snort s*** up your nose. that'll f*** you up."
this is a university, not some liberal arts/community college grades 13-16. you are a number unless you do something about it. get involved, meet people, join clubs, get to know your profs. get a bike because walking is for suckers. learn to use the bus system. eat a super dog/gyro/flying burrito whenever possible. spend time on central campus just hanging out. ISU has one of the best campuses in the country.
this is a university, not some liberal arts/community college grades 13-16. you are a number unless you do something about it. get involved, meet people, join clubs, get to know your profs. get a bike because walking is for suckers. learn to use the bus system. eat a super dog/gyro/flying burrito whenever possible. spend time on central campus just hanging out. ISU has one of the best campuses in the country.
I do what I want. Also, I was a peer mentor so this stuff just starts pouring out when I start typing it. Just want to help all the little chitlens.
Chem 177 with C. Bonaccorsi
Engl 250H with A. Clarke
Engr 101 with A. Brandau
Engr 160 with M. Hagge
Hon 121 with L. Law
Lib 160
Math 165 with H. Bolles
(I know I'm in Honors but I promise I'm not a complete loser)
You'll need the Chem 177 book, and the English books. Honors English can be sucky - I've heard this varied greatly by professor, mine was kind of a nasty one). The retreat is pretty fun though, and 121 as long as you have cool leaders, which most of them are.
At least that baby was an easy A for 4 credits! I still have the Access database of my movies that I made.
The beer was positive reinforcement for them.
Peer Mentoring is a great way to get paid for doing barely anything and putting a leadership position on your resume.
most of my time spent in the library was wandering the damn tiers for the library class.
Yeah, I had DH help do a lot of the Excel/Access stuff in return for English paper help. The irony is that my first internship (and now job) have me in that stuff everyday, lol. But I learned more from googling what I was trying to do than in that class anyway.
Find your tolerance. Better liquors will reduce your hangover and stomach problems the next day.
Drink water and ibuprofen before you go to bed.
Just because others are partying on your floor doesn't mean you should. Some have slack majors and don't have to do a whole lot.
Helser is trashier than the other dorms but a lot more fun and social.
Find friends to party with. Find friends to study with.
Schedule out your day to study a certain amount of hours. If you get your dirty work done in the mornings and Mon through Thurs it will make the weekends a lot more available and fun.
Don't hold parties in your room. Go to others. The chances of getting a minor, getting stuff broken, and stolen go wayyy down.
Go to class!!!!!!!!! It will improve your grades in ALL classes. No matter how easy or simple or if you've already taken it in high school. Every teacher does things differently. Learn to email them with questions.
Drink water and ibuprofen before you go to bed.
Just because others are partying on your floor doesn't mean you should. Some have slack majors and don't have to do a whole lot.
Helser is trashier than the other dorms but a lot more fun and social.
Find friends to party with. Find friends to study with.
Schedule out your day to study a certain amount of hours. If you get your dirty work done in the mornings and Mon through Thurs it will make the weekends a lot more available and fun.
Don't hold parties in your room. Go to others. The chances of getting a minor, getting stuff broken, and stolen go wayyy down.
Go to class!!!!!!!!! It will improve your grades in ALL classes. No matter how easy or simple or if you've already taken it in high school. Every teacher does things differently. Learn to email them with questions.
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I went to ISU and graduated from ISU. I still live in Ames by choice and love it. That being said if you think it is a good decision to turn left at the Washington/Kellog Intersection on Lincoln Ave heading east I will hunt you down and slash your tires.
If any of your courses offer Supplemental Instruction (SI), you should check out a few sessions. They're taught by upperclassmen who have already taken the courses--often with the same professor even--so they'll know a lot of the tricky exam questions and homework answers. It's also a good way to meet other people who are serious students; it's always good to have a few of them in your social circle.
When you become a junior, you can apply to become an SI leader, and having experience with the program will help you do that. I did it for my last two years, and it was a great job. It pays pretty well, you have a lot of flexibility for scheduling your work hours, you get to keep your skills sharp, the job is on campus, and it looks really good on a résumé. You can also meet some really cool people through it--I had a few athletes that were in my sessions, and there's always a few kids that are much, much smarter than you who will challenge and push you. It was a blast.
Sorry if it's already been mentioned, but I haven't read the entire thread.
When you become a junior, you can apply to become an SI leader, and having experience with the program will help you do that. I did it for my last two years, and it was a great job. It pays pretty well, you have a lot of flexibility for scheduling your work hours, you get to keep your skills sharp, the job is on campus, and it looks really good on a résumé. You can also meet some really cool people through it--I had a few athletes that were in my sessions, and there's always a few kids that are much, much smarter than you who will challenge and push you. It was a blast.
Sorry if it's already been mentioned, but I haven't read the entire thread.
Simple solution: get to be friends with people on your floor, empty everything out of your room into theirs except for couches, music, beverage cooling devices. Party on. Regularly had 15-30 people in our room, never lost anything worth worrying about.
OP: best advice I can give you is to not give you any. Doing what worked for everyone else won't necessarily work for you. You'll figure it out, we all did.
