Lessons From my First Year at Carleton
As she sits watching the flowers bloom from her window, Lita wonders how she's grown so far at Carleton?
As she sits watching the flowers bloom from her window, Lita wonders how she's grown so far at Carleton?
It’s midterm break here at Carleton; flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, and everyday it’s getting warmer. With everything so fresh and renewing, it makes me think…what about me? How have I grown at Carleton? What lessons have I learned so far? I took my book out and jotted down my thoughts!
Here are some of my discoveries!
Your major doesn’t matter as much as what you want to learn and explore, for real!
I am not saying that your major is meaningless, all I am saying is that, in my opinion, a piece of paper with your name and your major on it will only go so far. What’s more important, I think, are your skills and how well you can communicate those skills that to the people around you.
So, I’d say when you pick your classes, think more about what skills and areas of knowledge you want to gain or explore further because that way, I feel you will make the best of your time at a liberal arts institute! One way to not be too overwhelmed by the number of the amazing classes you want to take, is to jot down what skills you want to learn or get to know further without thinking of classes, then once you have a pretty good idea, you can lay out a plan of what classes can help you achieve these skills!
Don’t worry about your dorm; adapt and you’ll make the best out of your experience regardless
For a lot of incoming students, including me, there’s a hesitancy thinking, “oh no, what if I get a bad dorm!” News flash, they’re all fine! And honestly, they’re all cool in their own ways. I love that each dorm has their own personality. For instance, in Musser, you can draw on the erasable walls, and students leave quotes, sketches, and funny jokes all the time! In Goodhue, you wake up to a view of the lake, and the Arb. You’re also only a minute away from the Rec Center. I also lived in a triple, on the 7th floor of Watson, and got a great view of the campus, since it is the highest point. It gets me excited to wake up every morning and see the sun rise over campus or the first blanket of snow.
The point I want to make is, a lot of it has to do with your attitude. If you come in optimistic, excited to learn more about your college, friends you’ll make, and make the best time out of your freshman year, it hardly matters where you live.
Befriend your seniors!
You’re going to make a lot of friends but I want to emphasize this because I feel like seniors have been doing what you’re about to do for 4 years! If you’re curious, you should totally hit them up and talk about … literally anything you want — academics, sports, life balance, food, the future, etc. It’s also their last year, and it would be nice to get to know them and their plans for the future. When they leave, keep in touch! I feel like this hasn’t been emphasized enough. At Carleton, it doesn’t matter if you’re a senior or a junior, a sophomore or a first year, everyone cares and is excited to get to know you! So don’t hold back.
Well, those are the biggest takeaways I came up with that I think would be great to share with you. I hope these have been useful for you to reflect what matters to you and how you want to make the best out of your college experience. See you next time!
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Lita hails all the way from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. When not riding horses, petting them, or sketching a picture of them, she blogs her philosophical brain dumps on Medium. Other than that, Lita is passionate about social impact startups and edu-tech. She plans on majoring in Computer Science, but who knows, she could simply switch to Studio Art and spend her days drawing horses. Hey, that’s why we’re at Carleton, am I right? Meet the other bloggers!