*note: originally from my other thread and simply copied over

a lot of this is going to be my personal opinions, so if you don't relate, then that's totally valid. my experience is highly specific to myself, someone who's consistently had good grades in high school and then went to a good college and suffered. this is also going to be a long post because it'll essentially be a summary of my lessons after my first year of college + first summer break.

imposter syndrome

anyway, if you're like me and you were ~pretty much~ one of the top people in your high school (in my case, i ranked 17 out of 400-some people), even if you do think you have a lot to improve upon, things will change in college.

bruh... like, everyone at my school is a in GENIUS. granted, i don't have a lot of friends, but the people i do know? they're all so ing smart, to the point where i don't even know if i have the face to be around them. and the ones who aren't as 'smart' naturally, they work hard and try. and then there's me, and it feels like i've just given up. i don't know how to keep trying :((

but that's not the point lmao. the point is, you're probably going to get hit hard with imposter syndrome (if you're not familiar with the term, it's essentially feeling like you don't belong because everyone else is better than you, aka feeling like you faked your way here). believe it or not, it's a HIGHLY common feeling amongst academics! most people you know probably feel it and just aren't saying so.

even if that's true though, it doesn't diminish your own experiences and feelings. i know for sure that i've developed a whole slew of mental issues this past year lmao. i wish i knew how to give yall advice and offer a tried-and-true way of getting rid of the feeling of inadequacy, but i don't have an answer because i'm still trying to find it myself. i just know that you need to have a good support system, whether that's your family, friends, therapy, or even some random stranger on the internet. hint hint, if you really don't know who to talk to, i'll be here.

professors and other people

so on professors... some teach well, some do not. it's really pure luck who you get sometimes because professors switch around teaching courses, but that doesn't mean you have to be ed! first off, a lot of professors have TAs whose entire job is to explain stuff to you, but also, most professors are hella willing to explain stuff anyway. a lot of them will know that first year students struggle and besides, they're not supposed to judge you for your learning ability/methods. on the off chance that you do get a genuinely ty professor, though, i'd suggest asking people in the same class or going online.

on that note, i personally didn't interact with my TAs a lot but they were all really nice and i do know people who have become friends with theirs. obviously they can't help you cheat but i did notice that the people who really interacted with the TAs got their questions answered more frequently, whether that's because they were willing to ask or because whatever else, i don't know, but that's just how i saw it. most TAs for important classes will be grad students but i had a TA who was a senior in my first semester physics class. making connections with grad students can be pretty helpful, ngl, but ofc you don't have to lol.

okay but, for real, how many of us are introverts? i'm gonna bet a lot of us have trouble making friends, and despite people being like 'omg you're gonna have the time of your life in college!' i don't feel that way. yet, hopefully, because i can't stand the idea of being friendless all through college. most of the times, your college will have a facebook page for new students, and i found our year's discord through that page too. i am at least on speaking terms with a lot of those people, and though i still don't have friends, it's nice to have a, sort of backup, i guess?

but anyway, you can also make friends through clubs! i'll probably be talking about clubs later so i won't go too into detail here. the point of this section was mostly to talk about professors and TAs lmao. for real, don't be afraid to go to professors' office hours. like, they set aside that time for a reason! i practically lived in my professor's office last semester ;; it was embarrassing and i still didn't do well in that class but he could see that i made an effort, you know?

some professors don't actually have office hours, but in that case, they'll make it so that you can email them and set up an appointment outside of class hours. oh and TAs have office hours too, and the same thing goes for them, if you won't be available for office hours, you can email them to set up an appointment. 

class setup(?)

idk how many high schools follow a college-like schedule, but mine sure didn't so i had the time of my life when college started. in college, most classes will be like 50 minutes long, with few classes lasting longer than that. even then, classes usually won't go past an hour and a half. that's 90 minutes. so during the days where you have lecture (usually like 3/5 days), the professor stands there and talks for 50 minutes, occasionally stopping for questions. on the other days, you go to recitation, where usually TAs walk you through what the professor talked about in lecture and help yall do practice problems. (i know some schools/professors don't use TAs and do everything themselves but like, we're talking my experience lol.)

ofc not every class warrants a recitation lol like my english class and my chinese class didn't have recitation and it didn't need them either. lecture/recitation are usually for core classes, and a lot of the times in entry-level courses, there will be one lecture but many sections of recitation. like, my math class had straight up eight sections. but because they don't have a lot of TAs, a couple of sections will be taught by the same TA. 

if your college is normal (and stupid, imo), you're probably going to have those classes that you have to take in order to graduate but mean absolutely nothing. like, we had this seminar class that was absolutely useless! they differ by the specific school you're in (like school of science, engineering, etc) and you have to make them up if you transfer lol. at least we do. and our schools also have specific core classes you need to take so if you transfer you gotta take those too lol.

oh and we also have student-led classes that don't really count for any units but are fun. literally you just have to fill out an application and demonstrate a strong knowledge of the subject matter, and then you teach the course of the stuff you're really interested in. we have courses on dr who, greek mythology, lockpicking, tetris, wuhanese dialect, anime (it's like THE most popular one lol), etc. not sure if any other school does this or if it's just us, but it's supposed to be pretty fun and low-pressure.

lecture halls are ing huge btw so try to sit in the front rows. get there early too so you can grab a seat before everyone fills up. recitations and smaller classes are usually held in normal classrooms. professors/TAs usually don't care where you sit there but they'll still ask you to move up if you sit all the way in the back and there's no need to. 

exploring campus/the place around campus

obviously every campus differs so i can't really talk about this in detail, but it's definitely a good idea to explore campus. don't go alone though, pull a friend or two, or even better, get an upperclassman to give you a tour! usually a lot of clubs will give tours at the beginning of the year so jump on one of those if you can. i still recommend getting more than one tour because different people know different stuff--i went on a wholeass four tours (orientation, club, upperclassman, with a friend) and i'm sure there are still places i haven't found yet. also, upperclassmen know some nice niche spots ;)))

usually if there's no class, classrooms and lecture halls will be open and empty so you can study in there. libraries are also almost always open, and we have a 24/7 open library, which seems to be pretty common. besides, most school buildings are open 24/7 during the year and there are common areas you can study in. there's straight up showers in the basement of our cs building lol... and my friend once brushed her teeth in the student common bathrooms... my other friend spent the night in the library... so yeah.... lmao.

now because cmu is in the city, we have a lot of places to explore. places which i, unfortunately, was waiting until this year to explore but now i can't go back so hhhhhh. anyway lol. we have a really small campus so there's not a lot to do actually on-campus, but there's a ton of stuff off-campus. if your school campus is big, there'll probably be a lot of stuff to do on-campus and it might be a lot of work to go off-campus. regardless, though, i think one thing common to most college students is that they get a lot of perks. we get to ride the bus for free, get into a lot of places for free, and hell, pitt students even eat in the city for free!!!! we don't, but that's beyond the scope of this section lmao. even if off-campus might be boring, i'm sure yall will probably have at least a few perks, so make sure to check them out when you can!

dorms/food/life in general

dorms are generally the same everywhere. the only major difference is how old they are and whether or not you get to choose your first year roommate. in my friend's case, she couldn't, but in my case, we could. that's not to say which way is better because my friend got a ty roommate not being able to choose and i chose a roommate who was not really great either. i think most colleges have that little survey thing where you input your habits and stuff and either they use that to give you a roommate, or you find one based off your criteria. that, honestly, is probably the best option that i see (i chose mine through facebook based off like three criteria, big cringe). 

anyway there are two kinds of dorms: ones with a public bathrooms and ones without. i got the ones with and somehow all my friends who live in dorms got the other sort ;; but tbh there's really nothing bad about having a hall bathroom. yeah it's sort of awkward taking a poop or showering, but first off, you just gotta pick the right times to poop (the best times are like 2-3pm when there's literally no one in the dorms) and shower either really early or really late (i usually showered around 7pm lol). as long as you don't treat it like a big deal, it won't be a big deal. also, there's the added perk of not having to clean your own bathroom!

you do have to clean your own dorm though lol. most good RAs will tell yall roommates to have a roommate contract that yall go over and agree upon. there were definitely things that my roommate and i didn't adhere to (neither of us cleaned very much, i kept the temperature too high, once she brought ppl over and i could barely sleep) but for the most part, we got along as we did because both of us were pretty good on the major stuff on the contract. one of the things that i highly recommend asking your future roommate (if yall get to choose) is whether or not they can sleep with a light on. i'm not talking like the overhead light, but a lamp, because my roommate and i had wildly different schedules but we could both sleep with a lamp on. meanwhile my friend's roommate couldn't at all and she had to go to the common areas to study at night.

campus food.... is notoriously not good lmao. i think we have some of the better food choices because unlike most schools, we don't have a cafeteria. we have a ton of smaller cafe-like food places around campus and you're not limited by a certain time to eat. a couple of our places are actually open until midnight, and one of them is open until 2. not sure how other college food systems work, but we have a certain number of 'meals' and a certain amount of 'free money' that we can use to get food with. so the 'meals' are basically like, you get food that's within a certain amount (for us, breakfast was 7.50, lunch was 9.80, dinner was like 12 or 10). then the 'free money' is used for like, if you want to get stuff that's not included in meals, if you want to get extra stuff beyond your meal amount money, or we can also use the money in the lil food store that we have.

i know that other colleges have a set amount of 'swipes' because they have cafeterias and you're not allowed to take food out, so a swipe equates to a meal. i'm pretty sure most school stores sell extra food and basic necessities (like we had shampoo and soap, etc). a lot of times, your 'swipes' and other meal money clears out after the semester ends, so towards the end of the semester, you got ppl buying stuff for other ppl or buying out the store. it's genuinely sort of funny but i went through it too, so.... it's not that funny anymore lol.

btw like i said before, upitt students get to eat in the city for 'free', but it's not actually like that. it's just that their 'meal money' can be spent on a lot of restaurants around the city. iirc they can spent money at pizza hut, domino's, subway, the boba shop, even the rite-aid LOL. we don't get those perks likely because we have enough food on campus :(( but also because pitt's a lot older than us so they've probably set it all up ages ago and we.... haven't. anyway cmu hates us lol.

life on campus is honestly pretty fun if you have friends, but alas i didn't, so it wasn't so fun lmao. i legit spent most of my first semester sitting in my dorm room all day. i started going out with food with my friend a lot more during what little second semester i had though so it wasn't all too bad. there's smth really nice about walking to class when the air's still a little cold (very cold if you're in the north) before most ppl are awake (i had an 8am my first semester) and it's like wow i'm really living that college life huh.

i can't say much about parties (talking about clubs next; don't worry, we'll get there LOL) because i don't drink and nor do i associate with ppl who do. but uh, we were right across from the greek quad and let me just tell you, the parties those ppl throw, w h e w boy. not being judgmental, but if i had a room that faced the quad, i don't know whether or not i could sleep LOL. apparently our other greek quad (yeah we have two) could be even worse. i do not regret not living in those dorms.

there's usually a ton of stuff to do on campus in general, though, but most of them are connected to clubs, so--

clubs

colleges are like literally overrun by clubs. students like to gather lol and so alas. i wasn't in very many clubs myself so i won't be able to talk about many, but just know that clubs are responsible for like 90% of all events on campus, and there are a lot of events on campus. every ing day i would walk out and see some sort of message chalked on the sidewalk. there were signs everywhere promoting an idea of some club, or posters advertising some event by some frat. there was also always a table in front of one of the buildings by one of the buggy teams (you don't need to know anything about buggy except that it's like a huge cult for handpushed cars). one of those teams gave out free pancakes though, sO--

i was only really active in the lgbt and astronomy clubs (and i stopped participating in both since moving back home), but let me ing tell you, most of my friends were in lgbt club and i was on speaking terms with most of astronomy club. lgbt club also had a bunch of 'branch' clubs which i participated in as well. and, well, both clubs i were in were hella chill lol. i know there are less chill clubs (buggy requires hella attendance and kpop dance group which i was technically in but not active in also put emphasis on attendance if you got into a project) but hey, whatever floats your boat.

there's a ton of clubs about all sorts of things and honestly you can start your own club too, as long as you find a sponsor. i will warn you though, at least at my school, half of our clubs are frats/sororities and/or connected to politics in some way, so if that's not your thing, you'll probably be seeing a lot of it lol. no but seriously, frats and sororities have made a permanent nest in our student commons with fundraisers. most of our students seem to just ignore them, but usually they're a pretty legit cause and if you donate, you get food or smth. it's pretty cool.

there's really nothing else i can say because it's tired and there's other stuff i want to talk about too. also, i wasn't active in many clubs so...

studying

college seems to embody the whole staying up all night getting addicted to coffee energy, but most people i know actually get decent sleep. i could sleep like six hours on an average day, eight on a good one, and still like five or four on a bad day. getting addicted to caffeine is so ing normalized that it pisses me off but i know sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. still, i'm just saying that you can have a good sleep schedule and not get addicted to caffeine while still getting work done. the main thing is time management, and i am in no position to lecture anyone because i myself do not have such skills, but i know people who do.

first-year schedules are packed so you're probably going to suffer. i had a lot of time during the afternoons, though, and if i had used that time more efficiently, i wouldn't have suffered as much as i did. everyone studies differently, and what works for some people might not work for others. for instance, i can't study in the library, i do much better in my dorm alone, but other people have to go to the library. i don't particularly like reading over my notes but i do find that copying helps, but other people are able to do fine just reading their old notes. there's no 'right' way to study, but freshman year is basically figuring out how you like to do it and what works for you.

i'd suggest you study a lot. like obviously living is important, and you can't always study, but you're going to school for a reason, right? especially if your classes are hard, do a lot of practice problems and honestly ask your questions before they become too much. it's easier to catch up in the beginning rather than after you've already fallen behind.

and now's the time to talk about what if you HAVE fallen behind because you were afraid to ask questions or thought you could push through like you did in high school (aka what happened to me lmao). obv my experiences do not mirror everyone's, but i did poorly in the classes that mattered the most. my gpa was in my first semester and it's only after i pass/failed a class (the option was given specifically because of the pandemic; pass/fail classes don't count towards your gpa) that my gpa rose a bit in the second semester. my current gpa is not that great tbh and i highly regret it. 

what happened to me was that i just got so caught up in my own misery and frustration that i lowkey just stopped trying. i took notes, i did recitation problems, whatever, but i lowkey just gave up on actually learning. i still don't remember some of the physics equations i should know, and me if i know schrodinger's equations or what they mean. it's honestly pretty common because it seems like all my friends were like that too, but what do you know, they all got better grades than me :) so... don't trust ppl, always assume they're doing better than you, and give yourself a mental health day if you need, just don't fall behind.

tutoring/advisors/majors

this section's gonna jump around a lot because i'm trying to cover the main stuff without falling asleep lol.

there is a lot of student tutoring services that we offer and i'm sure other schools offer it too. usually it's a whole different system than TAs, these are led by the office of student resources or whatever, and the tutors are kids who've taken that class before and know how the professor teaches. for us, we met once a week outside of class to go over concepts and to do practice problems together. let me just say that i did this both semesters and i would have straight up failed if i hadn't gone LOL even though sometimes i didn't want to go if i'm being honest.

so advisors. idk how other schools do it but we have a first-year advisor and then an undergraduate advisor for your major. i'll be honest i didn't relaly see my advisor very often lol. i saw her once when we were going over my schedule for the second semester but that... was it. i talked to the physics department head when i was setting my major but that was also the only time lmao. our undergrad advisor was MIA for most of the year and we just got a new one but idk if i'm gonna talk to her much either lol. from what i understand, after you actually choose your major, you'll have a specific major advisor and they'll be a lot more helpful.

we choose our majors second year, officially, but if you know what you want to do, you can technically choose it in your second semester. which is what i did. but like, now i don't know if i like it, and that's the main reason i'm writing this paragraph, because none of my friends really know if they want to stay in their majors either. hell, a couple of my friends changed their majors during first semester. i just, i mean idk. just that, it's totally okay not to know what you want to do, and to change your major, but it's best if you change your major before your fourth semester hits because that's when the major courses really start, and after that it'll be hard for you to graduate on time. 

idk, like, if you feel like you really don't like this major, obviously you should do smth that makes you happy! but i think that when you choose your major, you should go for something that you'd be happy doing not as a hobby, but as a job. like i would hate writing if it was my job lol which is why i'm not majoring in it. i am minoring in it, though, so like you can definitely minor in smth you like as a hobby. maybe this is just me being too asian lol.

mental health/counseling

i cannot stress how important your mental health is. YOU DESERVE SLEEP REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU'VE DONE OR DID NOT DO!! you deserve food regardless of how much you've already ate that day!! you deserve to rest and to be happy or at least content!!

i capitalized the sleep one and not the others because in my experience, students stress themselves out about sleep the most. that's not to say the others (and other stuff i didn't mention) doesn't ring true, but like, the reason i stay up late is because i feel like i've done nothing during the day and i have to make it up during the night, or i have to punish myself for being useless, or something. and i didn't realize this until i saw a sign during mental health week, and at first i was like psh what who actually believes that they don't deserve sleep, and then i realized i do it myself.

mental health is so important. almost all of my friends (myself including) have had issues with mental health this past year. it manifests in different ways, like staying up, or constantly belittling ourselves, or turning to material substances for comfort, or grades falling, or socially withdrawing. with the pandemic, it's even worse because some of us are stuck in toxic households, can't study well, and/or don't have the social support we did back at school. it's really important for you to keep up your mental health during college and there are a lot of ways to do it, but simply taking a walk sometimes and not thinking about anything school-related can help.

schools will usually have a counseling/therapy service that's free to students. i went once to check it out and though i didn't need any help then, it seemed like a comfortable environment. one of my friends had regular appointments with one of the therapists and as far as i could tell, it at least gave her someone to talk to. we also had a hotline that you could call, but it was staffed by students and as far as i know, it wasn't 24/7. tbh cmu doesn't do the best with mental health, and the talks they give are showy at best, but i think it's good that they're at least trying.

from my experience, the ones who really excaberate the situation are the students. our cs and arts departments are notoriously hard and overwhelming, and ppl regularly brag about how little sleep they got. being in a much less popular but nonetheless rigorous major, i can really see the difference. engineering and science students might get like 5-6 hours of sleep sometimes, but some of those cs kids straight up do not sleep, i'm not kidding. but competing for unhealthy habits is not the way to go, and you have to remember to take care of yourself. it's not shameful to have to take a mental health day or if you need to talk to a therapist about the stress of school. yeah, other people might have bigger problems, but your concerns are valid too. people die over school, you getting help is welcome and encouraged.

also, i'm a hypocrite, but please do not compare yourself to other people. i know a lot of us were probably raised that way and it's the only way we know how to grow, but at some point, you stop growing and it just becomes a dead weight on you. there's no point in comparing because everyone studies/learns/gets stuff differently. my dad said he had a friend who never seemed to study but always got good grades and turns out the kid was sleeping at like 7pm and getting up at like 2am to study. that's a weird example but my point is, you don't know what's going on with people's lives. the kids who seem to be goofing off might be hella efficient at studying, and the kids who seem like they're doing well in class might actually be struggling. the only person you have to compare yourself with is yourself. but i can't tell you how to do that because i am, once again, a hypocrite.

internships/research

i didn't have any, and even if i would have, it would have gotten cancelled due to the virus. but i think this is the last summer break i'll have that's truly free. if you're going into academia in the future, you'll need research experience. if you're going into industry, you'll need job experience. either way, you're going to need to do stuff over the summer. every school has a career office (or smth like that) and they'll help you find opportunities and put together a resume and all that good stuff. i'm pretty sure you can make an appointment with them, but either way, just email them.

for research, you go find a professor whose work you find interesting and ask for a position. my friend (who's a senior this year) got hers by going to the undergrad advisor, who pulled out a binder and after they found a professor, he went 'alright, go knock on his door. right now, i'll wait.' and that's how she got her research position LOL. granted she doesn't like it that much, but it's definitely helped her a lot and that professor recently had a pretty cool finding (i forgot what and i can't find it on google either lol). 

either way, you can definitely get some sort of work during your first summer, but after the first year, it's pretty much required.

why i'm writing this

i don't think anyone even reads this blog lol. but even if it helps one person, i think it'll be worth it. i had a really hard time going into college because my parents went to college in china and things are pretty different there, especially back when they were young, and i was essentially on my own for a lot of this. i guess it's also because i want to give unsolicited advice (my way of coping, maybe?) and there's no one i can do that to irl without them getting fed up lol. this probably won't be the end of the thread, but i also probably won't visit it very often either.