Josie Blatt ’21, A&E Editor
Photo courtesy of Flickr
To the Class of 2022, welcome to the Hill! Hopefully you’re excited about beginning your first semester at Hamilton. While there is certainly a lot to look forward to, the start of college isn’t always perfect. Too often, the first semester of college is glorified on social media as a seamless transition and the best time of your life. While this may be true for a lucky few, the reality is that you will likely feel overwhelmed, homesick, stressed, or confused at times.
For many first-year students, the social aspect of college is the most daunting. Whether you grew up in a small town and had classes with the same people since you were in kindergarten, or went to a huge high school and were always interacting with new people, living on the Hill is a new social experience for everyone. My advice to any first-year worried about making friends, is to never close yourself off to meeting new people, throughout your entire first semester, and even your entire four years at Hamilton.
If you had the best time on your orientation trip, that’s fantastic! It can be tempting to eat every meal with these people and spend all of your time with them. While that may feel comfortable, I encourage you to reach out to more people. It’s certainly a good idea to maintain those relationships, but for your peers who may have struggled to connect with their tripmates, something as simple as a lunch invite will mean the world to them. You never know how someone is feeling, and even just asking your hallmate, “Hey, what classes are you taking?” can start a meaningful conversation that could lead to a great friendship.
For those of you who feel yourselves struggling to establishing close connections with your classmates, I challenge you to start up conversations in your classes, attend concerts and activities, and don’t be afraid to do things by yourself!
Also, try your best not to compare yourself to others. You may see a huge group of friends in your class, and be stressed that you don’t know that many people, or you may see your high school friends at dozens of parties on Snapchat, and be jealous of their experience. Just remember that you don’t know what’s going on in someone’s head. Your friend on Snapchat could have been miserable at those parties, and left after five minutes. Allow yourself and others time to find your people. There’s no set time that everything will click, and comparing yourself to others will only increase your stress.
In addition to navigating new relationships, your first semester at Hamilton may be the first extended period of time you’ve been away from your friends and family at home. I’ve found that staying busy is one of the best ways to overcome homesickness. The more you are studying and getting involved with student activities, the less you will think about what you’re missing back home. Additionally, finding communities like music groups, sports teams, cultural groups, etc., will help make Hamilton feel more like a home.
Moreover, remember to take time to yourself. While isolating yourself too much can increase homesickness, being around new people all day can be draining, and it’s important to do some quality self care every now and then.
Lastly, whether you’re homesick, stressed about academics, nervous about making friends, all of those things, or none of those things, don’t be afraid to ask for help! Your orientation leaders and RAs are great places to start, but I encourage you to look into all of Hamilton’s resources; Peer counselors, academic centers, faculty advisors, upperclassmen friends, and more, are all here to help you!
And if reading all this is making you feel like your first semester is going to be horrible, remember that these are just tips for the days when you’re feeling down. I could go on and on about the exciting and incredible moments to come, but I thought I’d let you discover the magic of the Hamily for yourself!
