The biggest surprise I faced at UMD was the realization of how much I’ve been shaped through my environment. In high school, I thought of myself that I was not a particularly good math student. By no means was I objectively bad at math- my high school, a magnet program, simply had many more opportunities for students in programs I was not in to go further in math, where as I took only up to AP Calculus AB, the fact that I even took calculus in high school seeming to me fairly unimpressive when I was going to school with students taking multivariate calculus or linear algebra. From this, I would never have guessed that calculus in college would become a favorite subject of mine. In the past, math was always something that I was only mediocre at, and something that I felt bad about being mediocre at. Given more time and mental bandwidth to study it, I see that math is no longer my hardest or most painful subject, and so I have the opportunity to study it with the same interest I normally would have reserved for other subjects. To a new student, I would recommend waiting to pass judgment on how you really feel on subjects until after you have completed the class, taking into account that these classes may be in topics you will be doing for the next several years, should you stay the course. Relationships with faculty is definitely another different aspect of college- all of my classes save for Scholars have over a hundred students, so my relationships with the professors are fairly weak. However, it has been easier for me to build relationships with my calculus TAs than anyone else, due to the fact that they are the only faculty I see more than once a week in a small group setting. Especially for a new student, it is wise to prioritize those faculty relationships that are easier to gain progress in, whether that be through TAs or a professor with particularly helpful office hours. The adjustment to the structure of life at university is also an important factor. For one, there is the aspect of living somewhere where your living space now includes another person- in fact, true privacy in the first year of college is hard to come by. I suspect this is somewhat deliberate, to counteract the possible other implication of being in college- distance from family. At home, if I chose to not go to class and rot in my bed every day, eventually my mom would probably come to figure out what’s going on. In college, were it not for other students, I could do this with no one being the wiser. Having at least one friend or acquaintance that would find it strange if you stopped showing up for classes for several days is a good idea. However, there is also the nicer part of college being far enough away from family, that small things can be more easily gotten away with- not folding your laundry, playing a game instead of homework, having extra snacks - the sort of thing that is only mildly irresponsible and makes living in a tiny room with someone else and expected to keep up with learning a lot more bearable. The part I will say I think I was the least prepared for is less about university in and of itself, and more about me - I was not prepared for the feeling of being surrounded by people, and yet entirely isolated. It seems like it should be obvious, for the same reason it’s obvious that a professor with a hundred students can’t get to know all of them very well, but it’s a lot different to know it than it is to feel it. I miss the closeness I had with my friends from high school, though I still spend much time talking to them over text. Maybe it’s just something about me, my tendency to want to be alone, or maybe there’s a factor of luck to it, that the only thing between me and the closer friendships I want is simply time. Considering this is how I felt around the beginning of high school, and wound up making great friends later, I believe, and deeply hope, that it is the latter possibility. To any new student, and to hopefully myself in the future, I hope you’ve had an easier time finding people to lean on.