25th July, 2020

Are you a ‘summer person’ or do you prefer it when it is colder?

okay im going to be real here. sometimes i see posts about college that give advice along the lines of: no one has their shit together, you’ll all be confused together!!! and while thats a nice sentiment, and can be true for you and most of the college population. its a bad image to give because:

its not true. if you’re at college, chances are theres going to be a wide range of academic peoples. so while there may be a lot of people who are just as confused and lost as you are, there are also going to be people who totally do have their shit together. i have friends who had internships right away, got a job, and got all the clubs they wanted as a freshmen. maybe they’re more together than most of the population, but these people exist so it won’t do you any favors to go into college thinking that you’re all in the same boat.

everyone comes from different backgrounds, goes into college with different privileges, and comes out of college with different expectations. what’s more important is to remember that your success shouldn’t be defined by someone one elses. instead of thinking about how everyone’s supposedly going to suffer together, i would focus more on what goals you hope to achieve, what are your own expectations, what you hope to get out of your first day, week, year, of college, and what steps you personally need to take to feel like you’re in a good place. 

if you don’t register for the dream schedule you want on your registration day, don’t panic! now public schools work differently than private schools just because of the sheer number of students in classes, so i can’t speak for schools like cal that have like 500 student lectures. but for a private school like usc,, you are offered a lot more flexibility to move around your schedule. 

usc allows you to change your schedule up until 3 weeks into the semester. this is super nice because in the first 3 weeks, that means everyone is changing their schedule around too: dropping, finding better time slots, etc. aka the class you wanted but didn’t get? chances are someones going to drop in the first week and you can swoop in for that spot. you have to act fast though! 

i just reposted something that mentioned this but holy shit this is so important: don’t forget your laundry. the moment you put it in, set a timer.

there’s nothing more annoying than waiting to put your laundry in the washer/dryer and the person who’s supposed to come pick it up doesn’t show up at the right time. you’ll sit there and wait and wait and wait, wondering what to do because you need to do your laundry to. inevitably, someone will take the laundry out, which annoys the person who was supposed to take out their laundry on time in the first place. its a huge passive aggressive cycle that no one wants to deal with but eventually has to. 

if you can, get an on-campus job! you might not think you’ll be able to handle it with your academics and extracurriculars at first, but trust me. in college, you suddenly have so much free time that you don’t know what to do with yourself. as someone who likes feeling busy, i got a job through my work-study (a federal college work program) allotment right away. the nice thing about having an on-campus is:

1. you can spend your own money!!! it’ll make you feel more independent and forces you to be more conscious about your spending choices

2. the usc jobs are offered all 4 years so if thats the same with your college, then you’re set!

3. most jobs have upperclassmen who are definitely resources you want about academics, extracurriculars, etc

4. depending on where you work, you get access to a lot more faculty than a normal student which again, connections!