I once received some very good advice as a sophomore from a professor when I was unsure about my summer internship. He said, do the internship, even if you’re unsure if you’ll like it, because after you’re done with it you’ll know exactly what you liked about it and what you didn’t. Then, moving forward, you’ve discovered what type of jobs/projects/career path too look for and what to avoid. The advice that I would give to any freshman is very similar to this philosophy.
As freshman, there are going to be a lot of questions on your mind as to what the next four years will hold. Do I really want to be this major? What if I’m not good at doing this? Should I join this student organization? Should I go talk to that person? Having these questions is fine and very normal, but you need to make sure act and do something. By not doing anything, you will never get anywhere. So my advice is to just go for it. You’re a freshman: if you do something and don’t like it, you have plenty of time to try something else. And besides, you’ll now know what things you don’t like to do and you can avoid them! If you meet someone and embarrass yourself or don’t like them, well, you’ve got over 15,000 more people to meet. Or, even better, you may find that you end up loving something you had no idea you would even like or connecting with a person you thought was very different from you!
Some of my friends from freshman year!
