Michigan State University Top Questions

I would tell myself to buck up and get ready for the hardest and most rewarding experience you'll ever have. High school was a piece of cake, but now you're going to a real college and you won't be the smartest person around anymore. Far from it. You are going to have to work harder on this than anything before and it's going to be more work than you can imagine. At times you'll wonder what the point is and want to quit, but remember, you have a dream and although your brain might melt on the way there, it will be so worth it when you finally walk onto that stage to recieve your diploma and realize that you have finally accomplished everything that you've worked for your whole life. And that will be the greatest feeling in the world.

If I was to go back to myself as a highschool senior, I would tell myself two things. The first would be to save money, because having a job and being away from parents makes it really easy to spend money too liberally. Making a budget is helpful to ensure that there is money for the future. Second would be to take a variety of classes freshman year and to keep an open mind about choosing a major. I went into college believing I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but after taking many of the classes in the field I thought I wanted to go into, I realized that I did not enjoy it.

Get ready! You are about to embark on a great new experience, but you have to stay prepared. You put in so much time and effort during high school, and you definitely cannot be ready to give up now. There's an entire sense of new found freedom, but with that comes a new responsibility to keep your own head in the game. You have to take care of yourself now, and stay intrinsically motivated. You're not going to give up. Sure, at times it seems so stressful, and yeah, you will have three exams in one week, but keep your head up and perservere. College is great, but only if you make it great. Don't get caught up in too many things that will distract you from why you are here. You are here to get a great education and to further yourself in life, whether it be for a career or to discover what is true for yourself. I can't say it enough, but keep at it, and you'll be successful in all your college endeavors.

To be honest, Katherine, you should really enjoy yourself being in such a good high school in the area. Not only do you now have much more chance to make American friends to help in get more involved in the culture, but this is also a place you can have a lot of fun. I am not here to say that college life does not allow you to make friends, or it is boring; my saying is that in high school, it is like in a playground when you go to school. Everyone is "locked in" the school, you only have to meet so much people everyday at the same time and place. And this gives you a good chance to "force" others to be part of your life, whereas you can only be good friends with those in can hook up in college. Also, in high school, your teachers are like child daycarers, they care about you personally more than college professors. And the largest point in difference is that high school teachers help and treat new immigrant student like me, as a new born baby. College professors is not the same story. Enjoy where you are now!

If I could go back in time and talk to myself as a high school senior, I do not think I would. What could I tell myself that would make my experience at Michigan State University better than it already is? I love the experience I have had here, the friends I have made, the place and the people that I work with. The atmosphere is engaging and the school spirit is completely infectious. I think that college is what you make of it. When I came here I came with optomism and and an open mind. I think that that is really all anyone needs when making the transition from high school to college. It is not everything you expect, but you have to be open to everything that comes at you. That's the advice I gave myself before I came to MSU, and that is the same advice I would give myself if could go back in time.

If I could go back and talk to myself about college I would tell myself to be more confident when talking to professors and roommates. I would also tell myself that I need to learn to make friends to study with and don't be afraid to be foreward with people in lab. It's a new place with new people so take advantage of it and make some good friends.

If I could go back in time and talk to myself as a high school senior I would have a lot of things to say, such as to not let yourself get lost in the crowd. When my parents dropped me off to college for the first time I felt so alone and lost. I wish I would have been more prepared for that moment. No one from my high school came to Michigan State with me and I felt like I was dropped into a pool surrounded by people I did not know and it was the most terrifying feeling ever. Now that time has passed and I realized that I wasn't dropped, I dove into the pool head first. If I could say one thing to myself now that I am looking back, it would be to believe in yourself. I came from a really small school, my graduating class was 69 people, to a really big school with my freshman class having over 4,000. It took a lot of hard work to get where I am at today and by learning to believe in myself more I have made all my dreams happen.

I would have told myself that prestige in a university is not everything. I was looking to apply to a school with a "name" and therefore I limited myself to the wide selection of many great universities around the country. Size and location should not have negated my choice, I wanted to attend a small school on the east coast but being here made me realize it's not the size or location but the pride that the students have for the school. One of my biggest mistakes was depending on one particular scholarship- nothing is guaranteed and I should have used my resources and had plan B, C, D etc. ready. My advice summed up to myself would have been " don't limit yourself Shanhai because you never know if you might like the very thing that you are least expecting."

I would encourage my senior self to start meeting new people right away. There are 46,000 students here, some of them could be potential best friends! I would tell my younger self not to worry, not to stress, to soak up every moment because it does not last long. It's important to get the most out of the experience while you can so going to sporting events, concerts, game nights, movies, and parties are all good ideas. Learn how to do laundry, get a bus pass, buy some good tennis shoes because you do a lot of walking here, and bring as much of home as possible so that soon your dorm room feels like home. Learn to manage your finances; it is easy to spend money here--ordering chinese food or pizza, getting ice cream from Cold Stone, shopping at the nearby book stores, going to the mall...Set a budget! Have some self control. And that applies to a whle lot of things--make good choices, stick to your principles and be kind to everyone because you make a small difference for a lot of people. Most of all, have a whole lot of fun!

Simple answer - learn how to take notes. In high school I was used to a class size of around 20 - 25 students per class. In college I have experiences classes that range from 20 in a class to 300. Some classes have very little student/professor interaction and the teaching style is pure lecture. Learning how to take notes, listening for the critical pieces of information to include in notes has been a difficult transition to make. When you have only 1-2 exams per class, the notes become critical. I learned the less the hard way when final exams arrived. My notes did not fully make sense and where very scattered, making studying from them very difficult. Poor notes caused me to spend more time rereading chapters and trying to study with other students from the class, hoping their notes and memory were better than mine. This semester my goal is to try to approach note taking and listening in the lecture halls in a more concentrated manner.