Ever wonder what your first weeks at college is like? For those who were accepted to Vanderbilt University Class of 2019, you’re in a for a treat! Emilygoldberg shares with AdmitSee her experience at Vandy just 2 years ago!
Looking back now on my first few weeks of college, I still can’t believe how easy it was for me to adjust to life at Vanderbilt. To be sure, the months leading up to moving onto campus were often nerve-wracking, but once I actually got there I had a fantastic time and could hardly remember why I’d ever been worried in the first place.
From the very beginning, Vanderbilt went the extra mile to make sure new students knew that we were now part of a larger community. On freshmen move-in day, a group of upperclassmen called the Move Crew greeted me as I drove up to my freshman dorm for the first time. I’d watched several videos of move-in day from the previous year, and it reminded me of sleep-away camp. The Move Crew wore matching neon yellow shirts and cheered enthusiastically for each car as they drove up. The volunteers swarmed my car as soon as we parked, taking out all the luggage and carrying it directly to my dorm room so I didn’t have to lift a finger. It was all pretty overwhelming.
As I got more acquainted with Vanderbilt’s campus and the people there, I quickly realized that all my previous anxieties about moving in were completely unfounded. The students of the Move Crew were friendly and eager to help, taking care of pretty much everything within minutes of me stepping into my dorm. I arrived before my roommate did, so my family wasn’t overwhelmed as we unpacked everything that the moving volunteers had brought to my room. That first day, I met a ton of new people: my amazing roommate, whom I had chosen on Facebook, the incredibly welcoming RAs that would be living in my building, and the rest of my floor during a fun game of two truths and a lie.
It might be hard to imagine feeling at home so quickly amongst hundreds of complete strangers, but you’d be surprised by how friendly and open everyone is at the beginning of your freshman year of college. Since I go to a private university, there usually isn’t more than a handful of students from the same high school in any given year. Everyone was excited to meet each other and start forming new relationships. It was impossible to keep track of all of the names, but countless introductions were made and phone numbers swapped within that first week.
To my surprise, I didn’t get homesick at all during my first few weeks of college. There were tons of events and activities planned in the days before classes started, like meetings with my Visions group (a freshmen orientation group that lasts until Thanksgiving break) and the Founder’s Walk. By the time classes started, I walked around campus every single day relishing the beauty of the weather, the park-like scenery, the buildings, and most importantly, my dorm, North House (pictured above). Starting with a freshmen party at the Country Music Hall of Fame and a trip that my RA planned to see “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” in the park close to campus, my hall mates and I grew closer and closer every day.
Of course, not everything was perfect all the time. During my first week on campus, I slept through a “mandatory” College of Arts & Sciences introductory meeting, almost broke my cellphone during a rainy tour of campus, spilled a burrito all over my white t-shirt at Shakespeare in the park, got thrown up on at a karaoke bar, and got stuck in an elevator with 15 people for 45 minutes. Obviously, none of these problems affected me in the long run, but they made for some great stories to tell my parents during my first phone calls home.
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