Candidly Speaking: Insights from a Former Freshman

            My first semester of freshmen year is what I like to call haunting. Two days before move-in day nothing in my life was out the ordinary, and then suddenly I came down with the stomach bug. Being as sick as I was I couldn’t move into my dorm on move in day. I had missed the experience of being welcomed as a freshmen. The day before classes began I moved into my new dorm. The day was already bad as it had been raining while I was moving in.

            Once I was checked in and handed my code to the door, I made my way upstairs to the fourth floor of Butterfiled. I opened the door to my room and saw my best friend Olivia standing there. As I looked around the room I noticed that our third roommate had taken over most of the space. I was left with the top bunk and little closet space. I didn’t let any of this bother me. I was just in love with the fact that I live on top of one of the dining halls. Little did I know that I would spend all my waking time in there?

            After getting settled in my best friend and I printed out our schedules along with a map of the campus. We highlighted the location of each class and went to bed. The next day we woke up, got ready for class, and made our way out the door. We circled the campus a couple of times before we found any of our classes. Even though we had a map we still got lost as neither one of us knew how to read the map.

            We both had every class together and we both hated our classes. We are both wanting nursing majors and found three of our courses to be challenging. As the semester progressed we found ourselves moving backwards. We were struggling in three of our classes and instead of studying or getting tutored we went to Butterfield to eat, socialize, sleep, and watch Netflix all day long. We didn’t look forward to anything but the weekend. Most of the time we didn’t attend class. We would wake up and ask each other “Are you going to class today?” and of course the answer to that question was always” NO.”

            As the semester came to an end we tried to pull through with our classes, but it was too late. We were failing two out of our six classes and there was nothing we could do. Our GPA suffered terribly and we were very close to academic probation. Leaving URI at the end of the first semester we came up with a master plan to not let our second semester be as disastrous as the first. I can truly say I learned my lesson on the importance of attending classes and studying. 

            Going into my second year of college I am hoping to not get the stomach bug on move-in day. My best friend and I have already printed out our schedules and this year we don’t need a map to find our way around. Our classes are a little less hectic. We are only taking four classes as oppose to six. We’ve already spoken to people who have taken the courses that we are going to be taking in the fall. We came up with a study schedule and times to go to the Academic Enhancement Center (AEC) for tutoring.

            My advice to the incoming freshmen is for starters: Avoid making the dining hall the one place you go. Try to attend all of your classes and if you miss a day or so find a reliable classmate who has all the information covered in class or go see your professor about it. There are some courses that are very hard to catch up in so missing class often will cause nothing but failure. Avoid procrastinating when you have work that needs to be done by a certain time. I know that most people’s parents tell them to put their education first and I think this is very true. Once you see your opportunity almost slip away you learn to do everything differently. 

...............................................................................................

Mammy Jallow, Guest Writer, is currently a sophomore at the University of Rhode Island majoring in Health Studies.