After arriving on campus I already have a sense of what my first year at Penn State is going to be like and I am super excited! The first of three things that I am excited for in my first year are the Penn State football games. I’ve been going to Penn State football games for a hand full of years, but never as a student and that is what I’m looking forward to. Another thing I’m looking forward to is making new friends and meeting new people. I have already made new friends, but it will be cool one day when my friends from my hometown in Medford can meet my Penn State friends. The Last thing I am looking forward to is the fall and spring semester, when all the Penn State students are on campus and I will get the real, full college experience.
Although I’m excited there are also a few things that I am anxious about and the first thing is getting good grades. Grades can be very stressful and this is something I tend to stress about, but something I can do to conquer this is to stay on top of my work. Also, I am anxious about the workload and managing a schedule with 5 classes in it. This is going to be a challenge and managing my schedule will be crucial to success. One last thing that might cause me to be anxious is just being away from home. After my first week I have been good being away from home, but there could be times where I become anxious from being away from home.
Transitioning from High School to College, the first thing that I know I need to do differently and I already have been doing differently is making a schedule by myself and staying on top of that schedule. Another thing I need to do differently going off of that is pushing myself harder to complete all my work on time, doing it at the best of my ability, and study way more. Being a college student means being very independent and sometimes you have to put yourself out there even if you feel uncomfortable. With that being said, I want to get more involved in different things like greek life or clubs, and do things that are a bit out of my comfort zone. Greek life is very high on my priorities because it is something that I have been looking into for a decent amount of time now. I know other people from Penn State that are in fraternities and it seems like something I would definitely enjoy. Also club or intramural basketball is something that I am 100% going to get involved in just because I have played basketball my entire life and I can’t give out up just yet. The final thing that I really want to get involved with is THON, I think that the idea of raising money for children all across America that battle cancer everyday is a great thing to do. Anytime you can raise money or give back to people, it makes you feel good and this is something I definitely want to do.
The first goal I would like to set for myself in the first semester is to stay focused and don’t get off track for my aspirations of becoming a Finance major here at Penn State. In order to do this I will definitely stay on top of all my work and study to the best of my ability, which will all help me achieve this goal of staying focused. A goal for my first year at Penn State is to have a 3.5 gpa at the end of the year. Having a gpa above 3.5 will open the door for me to become a Finance major and possibly open up other things if I decide to change my mind. My ultimate goal after 4 years is to become that Finance major and get a job at a big name company, or even one day start my very own company. This goals will all be achievable as long as I don’t get distracted and try my hardest.