5 things I wish I knew before I started college
I was extremely nervous my first day of college. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it was going to be like in the movies: going to the classes, studying, working, and hanging out with friends. However, I really didn’t have it figured out till my third year of college. There were so many mistakes I made. I wish someone told me these things beforehand, so that I would make the best out of my college experience. That’s why I’m making this list, in the hopes that it will help you out.
- Career goals
Now, its one thing to have your major decided. But it is a whole other thing to know which career path you want to take. I studied Computer Engineering, which I would say is a very diverse field. There are thousands of career paths from my major alone, and I’m sure this is the case with most majors. I really didn’t get a chance to experiment as much as I would’ve liked to. However, I will say that doing research is an important first step to knowing which field you are passionate about. This is then connected with my next point, which is…
2. Internships
Getting an internship in your first and second year of college is really tough. Not many companies are willing to take such novice candidates. However, there are a lot of opportunities. Following with my previous point, if you know the career you want to go towards, then trying to gain experience through an internship in that area is the goal. So you need to plan coursework or projects around your career goals. For example, I took an online coursera class on mobile application development my freshman year. I also took an iOS development class from Codepath during my second year of college.This helped me land my first internship at Vmware Inc. as a software engineer.
There is a lot of pressure and competition around getting an internship, and the competition only grows when you’re trying to get a full-time job. So, I really think that starting early in my job hunt helped motivate me and gave me an edge over my peers.
3. Make friends with your seniors
I am graduating this upcoming spring, and I must say that without the help of my seniors, I wouldn’t have been able to make it this far. My friends were able to guide me on the classes I should take, which professors to steer clear from, and also helped me throughout the process of getting a degree. Even small things like how to apply for graduation or which electives to take were made much easier by knowing who I could reach out too for help.
4. Study groups
This is not to say that your seniors should be your only friends. Having friends who are in your classes, and who you can take classes with is so reassuring. You really bond over almost failing a class together and then surviving. Also having people who you can study with for tests, group assignments, and finals is the best way to study. At least for me, I was able to work longer, retain more information, and understand my classes better because of late night study sessions with my friends. We were all definitely obsessed with the library, to the point that we would run as soon as the library opened to get the best corner booth spot.
5. Using ALL of the resources
There are so many resources available to college students, and most of the time they are FREE! I could walk into any cafe and ask for a student discount, and most of the time I would save about 10–15%. Most campuses have a lot of resources available as well. I didn’t realize I had adobe cloud for free until my senior year of college. There are also deals you can get for educational purposes, like a free AWS developer account with 100$ credit.
More than just the free things, college is a place filled with like-minded individuals who most of the time are willing to help. Whether you join an organization or club or fraternity or you talk to a stranger. There is always a way to help enrich your college experience. I personally was able to learn a lot from the people around me by joining organizations on campus.
This was hard for me as I am quite introverted. However, once I joined one organization, I really started to get more comfortable with the process of exploring new interest and meeting new people. I was lucky enough to hold positions within these organizations, which helped me build up my resume and gave me a lot of skills as a leader.
I hope this article helps you and you are more prepared on your college journey!
