THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 12, 1994 TAG: 9408110069
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SHARON LaROWE, CAMPUS CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
WELCOME TO freshman year at college. Living away from home, often for the first time, first-year students must learn to fend for themselves - doing laundry, managing time, making decisions about what to eat and when to turn out the lights. They are faced with a dizzying array of choices - and Mom and Dad aren't on hand to give advice.
But upperclassmen have a few tips to make the first-year journey a little smoother. Here are some suggestions they wish someone had shared with them. FINDING A NICHE
Across the campus, smiling upperclassmen stand ready with pamphlets and pens in hand, enticing new students to sign up for the clubs they represent. From rugby to gay rights, TV production to ultimate Frisbee, college seems to offer a club to match every interest.
Liz Harris, a senior at the University of Richmond, remembers the stress of trying to find her place on campus when she first arrived. Harris struggled with choosing from the hordes of college clubs available.
``For a lot of people who are going from high school to college, they think they need to get involved in all the clubs immediately,'' she said. ``First semester, I was involved in nothing, and now I'm in over my head.''
After taking it easy at the beginning of freshman year, Harris has since joined a sorority, served as Panhellenic Council (Greek council) president, been a member of the school's honor council, served on a faculty hiring board and worked as a freshmen orientation counselor.
``The truth is, they (freshmen) truly need to get settled in and really explore what they want to get involved in,'' she said.
In college, opportunity doesn't always knock once and leave. ``Be patient,'' she said. ``If you want it to come, it will.'' TIME MANAGEMENT
Extra-curricular activities so invade Harris' time, however, that she sometimes puts school work at the bottom of her ``things to do today'' list. Setting priorities became a necessity, she said.
Harris was devastated when she realized she would have to discontinue her roles as a student lawyer for the advisory council and as an orientation counselor. But it was that or forever be chained to her daily planner.
``I have friends who literally have every minute of their life planned out,'' she said. ``They even schedule meals and showers.''
Brian Sullivan of Norfolk State University understands a never-ending schedule. In addition to taking 17 hours of classes, Sullivan also works a 31-hour-a-week job at a local music store. When he finally gets home around 10 each night, he and his roommate get to work in their recording studio - until 3 a.m. ACADEMICS
If NSU senior Angela Moore could relive her first year, she would have made her academic life more challenging.
``I would have taken more classes, so that way I wouldn't have to take so many hard classes in my senior year,'' said the fifth-year senior. Moore, who will be studying abroad in the Dominican Republic this fall, expects to graduate in the spring.
Tanya Boone let Cornell University's good reputation intimidate her as a freshman.
``This is Cornell,'' she said she thought to herself. ``Everybody's going to be smarter than me.'' Boone lost the mental war and her grades reflected that.
But during sophomore year, she convinced herself she could compete. She studied and raised her grade-point average from 2.8 to 3.5.
Boone urged students not to psyche themselves out and to remind themselves that they were good enough to get into their schools. They just have to work hard to stay there. NAIVETE
There's a saying in college circles: Freshmen girls are always the first to be invited to the party, the first offered the drinks and the first to leave with the guys.
According to the book ``Crime at College: The Student Guide to Personal Safety,'' college students are most susceptible to date rape during the first weeks of freshman year. That's when their desire to fit in is high and self-esteem low.
Harris makes it a point to look out for and warn naive freshmen women being scoped by shady guys.
But scam artists don't limit themselves to matters of the heart.
Boone, who went from the small town of Granville, N.Y., to the big time at Cornell, admits she was naive.
``Just coming from a small town, I was ready to say, `Oh, everybody is good.' I trusted people too much,'' she said.
That is until she got burned. A classmate asked for help with a research project. When Boone left to get some notes, the student took off with two weeks of her research.
``People still do that to me,'' she said, but now she doesn't take it. MEMO: Sharon LaRowe is a junior mass communications major at James Madison
University. She'll never forget first-year fumbles like washing her
underwear in the hot-temperature cycle along with a red T-shirt.
by CNB