To be honest, I had no idea what to expect when I first came to OSU. I had never even been away from home, alone, for more than a weekend. I was scared to be away from home, scared to be on my own, and scared to start this next part of my life. The Arts Scholars program was a way to make new friends, and this helped greatly when I had no idea who anyone was in my dorm, save for the three people I meet with during orientation. With the weekly seminar, I saw friends and made connections, and I was no longer worried about being on my own, or losing any friends.

I came to OSU with my best friend from high school, and because we were in two different dorms with two very different schedules, I was dreading the day when we’d grow apart, and not see each other ever again. But we’ve worked out times to meet and hang out, and have grown closer in this semester of new life, instead of growing apart.

I had worries about balancing work and eating correctly, and I was extremely concerned about gaining the Freshman Fifteen. At this point, I’m eating what I want, because I’m embracing different kinds of healthy food, and I exercise daily. So that worry vanished within a month or two. I came in undecided to OSU, which caused me a lot of stress on picking a major because I had no idea what I wanted to do. But, within a couple of months, I was set on Architecture, and decided to declare for a subject that I clearly could see myself working in.

Within this first semester, I have gone from hating being here and wanting to go home, to loving it here, but still wanting to go home to my family. It is near the holidays, after all. OSU is my second home, and I am so very glad to have chosen to come here for my college experience.

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.