Overall, I've enjoyed my freshman year at UMD, and I've learned a lot about who I am and what I want to do in the future. My biggest takeaway from this year has been that a lot of important things, maybe most important things, that happen to change who you are are not planned. There's nothing I could've done a year ago last summer to predict or prepare myself for all the things that have happened since then.
One area where this has definitely been true has been the courses I've taken. This semester, I have largely taken courses that are requirements for my major, so while the material has been interesting, they haven't been that surprising or transformative. On the other hand, my first semester I took almost exclusively gen eds, which, while I didn't enjoy all of them, taught me a lot more about what I was interested in and shaped my opinion of who I want to be academically much more than my major requirements did. I would say that it is very difficult to know as a freshman coming into college which classes are going to be interesting and transformative and which classes are going to be boring. I knew this when I was choosing my classes, so I didn't worry too much about picking the 'perfect' classes; I just chose a few that looked interesting and fulfilled some of my gen ed requirements. My advice to incoming freshmen would be that professors matter a lot more than courses do, so research your professors and choose the ones that look the most interesting and do work in fields that you might want to go into. Even if the course description isn't that appealing, PlanetTerp or just a simple google search about the professor's research will give you much better information when making a decision. My other piece of advice would be that you should not be afraid to pick classes that don't exactly align with your major or what you want to do; just look for interesting professors, and you'll end up in the right place. I think looking for classes like this is a great way to generate the kind of serendipity that is often much more valuable than anything you could have planned out beforehand.
One of the reasons it's so important to focus on professors instead of classes is that developing relationships with faculty is important but not easy. It can be very difficult, especially in entry-level courses, to be able to develop a relationship with someone who's teaching hundreds of students every semester. I've found that the easiest way to develop relationships has actually not been through classes but through programs outside of classes where there were fewer students. I also think that gen eds are an underlooked opportunity to meet faculty members because, even though it's not related to a major, you generally have much more choice with your gen eds as a freshman than with your major requirements, so it's a lot easier to pick classes you like, which will give professors the sense that you actually want to be there.
For me, the social aspect of starting college was the most difficult part as I came from out of state and didn't know anyone at UMD. Fortunately, there are a lot of different avenues for making friends during the first few weeks of the first semester. I made friends in a number of different places, from people living in my dorm to people in my classes to meeting people out on La Plata while throwing a football or kicking a soccer ball. Another great way to meet people with similar interests as you is to join clubs; most of my best friends I have made this year have come from clubs I joined the first semester, as this allows you to select, more than anything else, people you have a lot in common with. One of the big differences from high school to college for me was that there is no time that everyone is collectively in one place. As opposed to high school where you might just see your friends at lunch or in classes, you have to go out of your way a lot more to organize your schedule so that you can hang out with the people you want to. As with the other categories, my advice to incoming freshmen would be to go out and do as many different things as possible, especially in the first half of the first semester when everyone else is also looking to make new friends.
I think the biggest thing about university that I wasn't prepared for is how much free time there is. In high school, it was very easy to keep an organized schedule because there was never any downtime; I had class from 8 to 3 and then extracurriculars after that and then I had to drive home and do my homework. In college, however, class takes up a much smaller portion of your time (especially when you skip), and, in my experience, there is also a lot less work to do than in highschool. As a result, one of the biggest challenges for me the first semester was to figure out where else to put that extra time to allow it to be productive. I ended up putting most of my time into clubs and activities outside of classes, which I actually really enjoyed, as it allowed me to spend most of my time doing things I actually care about. My recommendation to incoming freshmen would be to reflect a little on what they want to spend the majority of their time doing each day and to consider who they want to be at the end of their time at college and what someone who was that person would be doing all day. There are plenty of things to do and clubs to join and projects to take on, but these all require planning and forethought.
Overall, this year has contained some of the biggest challenges, but it's also allowed for some of the biggest changes and the biggest growths of my life. If I could distill the lessons I've learned this year into one piece of advice for people starting their time at college, it would be to maximize their serendipity. Spend as much time as possible outside doing different things with different people in different places. It's very hard to plan the events or relationships that are going to have large positive impacts on your life, but the more time you spend in different environments, the more chances you give yourself to be exposed to these opportunities.