When I first came onto campus on OWL move in day, I was more than a little nervous. I was excited for the entire drive up to my dorm, but as soon as I exited the car and saw how lackluster the people acted who were moving me in, I was suddenly worried and a little scared about how these first few days would go. Being an OWL was actually not that fun for me; the dorm was eerily quiet and vacant. Until the actual move in day on August 18th, I didn’t like my dorm.

But, as soon as everyone arrived, I felt a buzzing energy and a happiness edging along the exhaustion from my ten hour shift. Everything started to settle into place; I met my roommate, everyone wanted to say “hi!” to each other and make friends, and the dorm did not feel dead as it had before. The floor meeting was nice, I met several new people, and I hung out in my dorm and handed out some cookies that my mom had baked for me to bring to school with me. At the end of the day, I felt much better. I was ready to try the whole college experience, even with being nervous.

The first week of classes was extremely overwhelming for me. I had seventeen credit hours planned out, which didn’t seem to much for me at the time of scheduling. However, as soon as I stepped foot into my last class of the day, it immediately felt like I was sucked under a tidal wave. After talking to my academic advisor, I realized that I didn’t need to take every single class at once— I needed to get a feel for campus first and take care of myself. Welcome Week was a wonderful thing to help me get a feel for campus, even though the sheer amount of events was a lot to take in.

I’ve started to adjust quite well to my life at OSU. I’ve gone home both weekends since move in day, though, because I still want to ease myself into college. The first week was about as stressful as I had expected, but the professors and the people are a whole lot nicer than I expected. I thought I would have to take as many classes as possible my first semester with Gen Eds, but the class load I have now is very manageable and I enjoy attending class, much unlike high school. I am excited to see how this first week at OSU leads into the rest of my first semester.