My First Semester as a College Student

This page has a reflection of my entire first semester in college beginning with the application process to get to where I am and ending with some valuable lessons I have learned throughout this semester.

My IUI Journey

IUI was one of the four schools I applied for and got accepted into. When I first applied here, I honestly wasn't even interested in coming here, I had only applied because I had heard good things about IUI's Physical Therapy Program. It wasn't until my first campus tour that I started looking at IUI as an actual option for me. Throughout the tour I absolutely fell in love with campus and I felt so welcomed here that I was already beginning to think of IUI as my home for the next few years. Orientation just finalized those feelings for me when I got meet even more amazing people and get to know campus better. Then it was time to move in and the entire first week was bridge week. At the time I really hated having class all day and feeling like every second of the day was planned out for me, but now looking back it was really nice to be in a group of other freshman that were in my same major or a very similar one. I got to know a lot of people that I now think of as good friends as well as getting to meet some of the professors I would have throughout my 4 years here. My whole journey: the application process, getting accepted not only into IUI but also into the School of Health & Human Sciences, annoying my mom with the number of campus tours we went on, going to orientation and getting to build my schedule for first semester, moving into University Tower, going through bridge week and meeting so many like-minded people, and now, finally, having almost completed my first semester as a college student; all of this has made this semester such a wonderful experience and I can't wait to see what the next three and a half years have in store for me!

My Strengths and Weaknesses

I feel like my main strengths this semester have been my ability to trouble shoot any problems or questions I have and my willingness to go to class and talk with my professors. Majority of the time I have no issue figuring out what's being asked of me and what needs to be done, but when I do usually I'm pretty good about making an effort to talk with my professor to figure out what I need to do to improve. My biggest weakness is definitely poor time management. Most things academically come easy to me so all throughout high school I would wait until the due date or the day of the exam/quiz to study or do the assignment and that always worked fine for me. I carried that over with me this semester and very quickly found out that method would not work with my college classes.

Biggest Lesson Learned

I feel like one of the biggest lessons I learned this semester was how important it is to build a community that can help you network. Having a strong social network makes the adjustment to college much easier and has helped me feel new welcomed while being in a new place.

Future Advice

If I could just give myself one piece of advice it would be to manage my time better and not allow myself to get so stressed. This semester I really struggled to stay on top of everything and it wasn't even that the assignments or tasks I was given were particularly hard, I just wasn't giving myself enough time to do them which then also made me overly stressed and it just wasn't a good time for me mentally.