Well, the start of first semester is almost upon us, and orientation begins tomorrow (crazy how fast the summer went). I thought back on my first semester at Oberlin and wanted to give some tips, tricks, and observations I wish I’d known my first month in school. Granted, these are heavily shaped by my own experience and as such should be taken with a grain of salt — y’all will have your own wonderful, wacky adventures — but thought they were worth sharing nonetheless.
1. Sleep Schedule
Starting off the list strong with ‘advice everyone gives you…’ unfortunately, everyone says it because it’s mostly true (double drat). I stayed up until the small hours of the morning every day during orientation week meeting people, going places, or talking with my roommate - and it was great! I’m not going to pretend doing all of those things wasn’t amazing, nor will I say that I necessarily regret staying up - some of the people I met are still my closest friends, and I have fond memories of climbing a tree in Tappan at midnight - but I will say the rude awakening when Connect Cleveland rolled around and everyone woke up at 7AM was rough. When the semester started in earnest and I had early morning classes, things more or less got back to normal… with the exception of my 5AM radio show on Monday mornings. Again, I won’t say this was a wholly negative experience — my dear friend had the 4AM show, so we would wake up together, spin some tunes, and then watch British murder mysteries until breakfast opened at 7 — but it certainly showed me the importance of getting a consistent amount of sleep. Also naps. Naps are the lifeblood of a college campus.
2. Fashion
This one is… weird, but worth noting. There’s a definitive difference between the fashion of north (more sweatshirts) and south (more sweaters) campus, and an even more pronounced difference between the conservatory (more formal) and the college (more relaxed) style. Obviously, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all or hard-and-fast rule, but I thought it worth mentioning. I move between south campus and the conservatory primarily, which means I usually plan outfits which fit into both worlds. Again, please feel free to take this observation — and it is an observation, not a piece of advice — with a grain of salt… but it's noticeable enough to warrant writing about here!
3. Food
Yes, get good nutrition blah blah blah, but more than that use food as an excuse to branch out. The first night we were all in the dorms I walked across the hall and somehow parleyed a bag of chocolate chip cookies into a three-year-long (and counting!) friendship / roommate situation. I massively lucked out with the people on my floor, who still remain my core friends on campus, and I credit much of that to coordinating mealtimes. We were all in vastly different classes and activities, but food brought us together and it’s stayed that way through our ups and downs. Having said that, also sit by new people! If you have one vague acquaintance from a class or club at a crowded table, absolutely use that as an excuse to sit down — and, if it’s awkward or terrible, have your own excuse to leave after a certain amount of time. Always worth a shot to try something new, especially when friendships are so experimental at the start of first year.
4. Office Hours
Go to them. No, seriously, even if you don’t have a particular issue or question, just go and chat (within reason… don’t take up the entire time, obvs). Professors are lovely, super interesting people and, at least for me, it’s always less awkward to go in with an actual question or problem having already visited once before. First year fall I went in to my queer theory professor’s office hours with an (admittedly) minor question about the syllabus and ended up finding out they lived a few blocks away from me when attending grad school. Small world! I then felt comfortable enough to ask for help from that professor in planning my first ever presentation in college, which absolutely helped both my nerves and the presentation itself.
5. Courses
Try new things!!! Go to the first day of a course you never would have thought about taking. If there's a class that sounds interesting but is in a different department or has instructor consent as a prerequisite, EMAIL PROFESSORS. I'm not a conservatory student, but was mildly interested in music history and wanted to take the intro level class so ended up cold-emailing the professor who taught it. He wrote back almost immediately with a spot in the class for me, one thing led to another, and now I TA for that very same class and am a major representative for the musicology department. Go figure, and go wild!
Whew… ok, that’s enough for now. If I think of more tips, tricks, or observations that are still relevant a bit into the school year, I’ll post another one of these but, at the moment, I wish you all the very best of luck and hope everything goes swimmingly. Welcome to Oberlin!!!
