20 Things An Incoming Freshman At Emerson College Need to Know

College is a stressful time, but there are ways you can enhance your experience! Here's things you need to know about being a freshman at Emerson College.

When I was an incoming freshman at Emerson College there were definitely things that I wish I knew before arriving. After my first year at Emerson, I learned so much that I knew if someone had told me beforehand I would have succeeded much more. Here are 20 things you should know before being a freshman at Emerson College!

Get involved

I wasn’t very involved in extracurriculars until my spring semester as a freshman at Emerson College and I highly suggest that once you are settled you get involved as much as possible. Your classes are very important but if you want to get a job in your field building your resume is essential. Your resume won’t build itself so the sooner you get involved in a lot of projects the larger your resume will be.

Don’t worry about making friends

On the drive up to Emerson, I was super nervous about not making friends but it was actually super easy. Every dorm the first couple of days hold socials throughout the building so you can meet people. If you are able to attend those it will help you to make friends.

Read the books you are assigned in class

In high school you could get away with not doing your class reading when it came to the tests because of things like SparkNotes. If you don’t read the books in college the test will make no sense whether you looked it up on the internet or not as a freshman at Emerson College.

Bring your own utensils

Sometimes I would find myself eating in my room with my friends and we would always need a fork. Luckily during break, I brought utensils back with me so we didn’t have to go to Center Stage just to grab some.

Your roommate doesn’t have to be your best friend

Just because you live together doesn’t mean you have to spend 24/7 with them. Sometimes when you spend so much time with people you end up getting annoyed with them over silly things which causes tension. Having tension with people you live with will make you not want to live there anymore.

Go to the library

Booking a study room will save your life during finals especially when you tend to get distracted easily. I studied for hours in the library instead of in my room and got way more done since I wasn’t getting distracted by my phone or other people as a freshman at Emerson College.

Get sleep

Being a freshman at Emerson College college makes you want to go out all night and sleep all day. However, if you do this then you will end up having no energy to go to class and skip which won’t help you in the long run.

Walk as much as possible

The freshman 15 is real and when your dorm is only five minutes away from your classes it doesn’t help you to not gain the weight. If you end up walking instead of getting an uber everywhere on the weekends and eat somewhat healthy you will end up gaining muscle instead of unwanted weight.

Rent your textbooks

If you rent your books you won’t have to spend tons of money buying them. If you don’t want to rent them you can also order them on Amazon for even cheaper or ask your professor about local bookstores that could sell them for cheap.

Use a swipe for center stage

I didn’t find out that you could use center stage food as a swipe meal until the end of my first year. This will help you save your board bucks for the last weeks of the semester so you can fill up on your favorite snacks for your ride back home.

Don’t pack hundreds of things

There is a CVS and a Walgreens two minutes away from campus so if you end up missing something you can always go there. Remember that you can always bring stuff to Emerson after breaks home too. I ended up bringing home extra clothes during my breaks so then I didn’t have a hard time packing for the summer.

Split some buys with your roommates

Before moving in my roommates and I had a group chat and we made sure we didn’t bring doubles of things and it made our lives much easier. We would also split certain things, like one of us would bring a broom and another would bring a microwave. This way we didn’t have to spend a lot of money.

Have study groups

My friends and I had Fundamentals of Speech Communication first semester and there were online quizzes after every chapter that were timed. So what we ended up doing was reading the chapter together and then taking the quizzes together too even though they were different questions on each quiz we could at least help each other.

Go to school events

Some of the events may sound really boring but they end up being super fun. This past year they had a silent disco which was really fun! These silly events will create memories that you’ll remember for a long time.

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Bring a yoga mat if you like to workout

I lived in 2 Boylston Place last year and the floors aren’t carpeted so not having a yoga mat when I wanted to workout made it harder for me to be motivated. The other problem is that our school gym is a 10-minute walk away from campus so I suggest bringing your favorites workout materials so you can work out in your room.

Join every Emerson Facebook group that pertains to you

A lot of my friends always asked me how I got involved in things like writing reviews of movies and being able to go to an advanced screening for them. The secret is Facebook! Emerson students are always looking for people to help out with projects and usually ask on Facebook first. Being apart of the Facebook groups helped me so much when it came to building my resume since I didn’t exactly know how to get involved.

Don’t use ECCash

Whenever I wanted to get food from somewhere else besides the dining hall I looked up places that accepted ECCash and would put money in my account. You are putting your own money into your ECCash accounts so it doesn’t make sense to use it. Instead just use your cash or your card to get food anywhere you like because either way, you are using your own money.

Bring lots and lots of quarters

There were points in the year where I would search for quarters high and low in my dorm room because I needed to do laundry and I didn’t want to have to put money into my ECCash account. The limit that you can put into your ECcash account is 10 dollars and if I was just doing laundry it would take 14 quarters so it didn’t make sense for me to do that when I could just use coins. I did laundry once every week or biweekly so having quarters is super important.

Always ask professors for help

I would email my professors as a freshman at Emerson College so many questions and it ended up helping me when it came to midterms and finals. They are there to help you and are way less intimidating then they seem to be. If you ask for help they will provide it! Sometimes they don’t respond quickly to emails so if they have office hours take advantage of that. Usually, they will be free to give you as much help as you need.

Your adviser is your best friend

Your adviser will be your lifeline for anything you need to know about from classes to study abroad programs. My spring semester my adviser mapped out the next four years for me when it came to classes I should be taking and whether or not I should go to LA my senior year. Having a good relationship with your adviser will make your college experience way less stressful and will help you plan your future.

Your freshman year of college is an important and exciting year! It will be stressful but if you use these 20 simple tips you will have a way less stressful year and you will be able to focus on your classes and extracurriculars more.