If you didn’t know, I was a freshman at Indiana University- Bloomington, and now am officially a Sophomore.
I know this a long post, but read it to bring back memories or start memories while you’re at college.
I’ll let you know the positives and negatives with going to this school including some freshman words of advice.
I hope you like my five, five, five deal (five positives, five negatives, and five pieces of advice).
Positives:
Indiana Daily Student: I was the field hockey (fall) and softball (spring) beat writer for one of the top college newspapers in the country. In the fall of my sophomore year, I will be covering the Volleyball (women’s varsity) team for the newspaper.
WIUX 99.1 Pure Student Radio and the Home for Hoosier Sports: With this radio station, who almost won an MTV woody award for the best college radio stations, I have broadcasted sporting events, been involved with Sports talk shows, and engineered some of the top IU athletic events. Just to name a few, I broadcasted one football game (IU vs. Purdue), two basketball games (IU at Northwestern and IU vs. Wisconsin), and broadcasted mens/ women’s soccer and baseball games.
Food: The Read Dorms have one of the best and fattening food places on campus. At the Bistro, you can build your own sandwich, burritos, and/ or nachos. It’s delicious to eat their and sometimes I went to the traditional cafe, where you can build your own burger.
Friends on Read Curry 5 floor: This year I made tons of friends from kids from Chi-town, to Indiana buddies to a kid from Virginia. The people you meet, you may love, like, or even hate them by the end of the year, but at least you know you made a relationship with them that could last one week or one lifetime. My best friend and roommate Mike Ochoa, was one of the luckiest things to happen to me. Although, he only lasted one semester as a Hoosier, I think I made a lifetime friend and he would probably say the same.
The Campus: It’s a big campus, but after a while you get used to the size and where your classes are. I named it as a positive because the campus is beautiful, with all of the lush green trees and limestone buildings that I believe make up one of the most underrated campus’ in the nation.
Negatives:
Parking tickets: Although, I didn’t have a car, I had friends that did and got tickets on the regular. Everyday walking to class out of the 50 cars I would see, I saw about 5- 10 cars with tickets on the windshield.
The Cops: They are tough, brutal, and want to arrest you for the sole purpose to boost their ego and “bust sheet”. By the “bust sheet”, I mean their superiors love it when they give out a drinking ticket, arrest a 21-year old for buying alcohol, or just arresting someone for being indecent in public. Don’t get involved with the cops or you might be paranoid for the rest of the year. Especially in the state of Indiana, where they will give you a heavy charge if caught with Marijuana, not saying I got busted for that, but I know people who did.
The gym during rush hours: I loved the gym because it kept me from gaining that freshman “15″ or “25″, but seriously sometimes that gym would be packed and I would have to wait in a line for 15-20 minutes just to get to workout because of the maximum capacity limit. A positive to this negative are the cute girls getting their bodies in “spring break” form, which made gave me motivation during my workouts.
Resident Assistant’s: Although, I had good RA my first year, there were RA’s that would sell-out kids on the floor and not be helpful when you even had questions.
Large classes: I didn’t always like large 400-500 person lecture halls because it was hard to learn the subject when the person next to you is playing a game, or checking out a hot girl on facebook. People aren’t focused in big classes and sometimes fall asleep, I know I did occasionally and I caught Phill a few times also.
Advice:
-Get involved and take initiative in things you love to do in the future. For example, my involvement with the IDS and WIUX has boosted my resume
-The “Freshman 15″ is real, so either eat less unhealthy foods or workout to counter-attack the weight gain in your first year.
-Be active on your dorm floor, get to know people on your floor and in the organizations your involved with to make friends.
-Go to parties drink, smoke and meet people whether it may be girls, boys, or mixes of both, college has it all.
-Have fun its your first year to experience a lot of things, so go out and “just do it” as Nike says because you might love or regret what you did, but at least you can say you did it!
Posted by Aaronse503 
