Freshman year was, for me, extremely exciting. It was full of new friends, new experiences and… Freshman year was, for me, extremely exciting. It was full of new friends, new experiences and new challenges, all of which made me a stronger person.

But at the beginning of my freshman year I wasn’t sure that everything was going to turn out so well.

I wasn’t happy with a number of my classes, and, although I had a great group of friends, it became rather boring hanging out with the same people doing the same things day in and day out. I’d wake up, eat, go to class, eat, go to class, eat and then end the day with a game of poker in the dorm. The first few weeks of freshman year were boring and formulaic.

And then I started to become more involved on campus.

I suppose it all started with the Activities Fair. The Activities Fair occurs a few weeks into the first semester of every year and is a great way to meet people and get involved in any number of student groups on campus.

I’d encourage everyone to go down to the fair with a few friends and spend maybe an hour checking out the various tables set up by campus organizations. It doesn’t take long, but it might be the most important hour of your freshman year.

I remember the experience as somewhat chaotic and overwhelming, but I did leave signed up for four campus groups that interested me.

This eventually proved to be too many, and an important piece of advice that I’ll give right now is not to become involved in too many extracurricular activities. Of the four groups I signed up for, I dropped two after about a week.

Signing up for four was a good way to figure out what exactly I wanted to spend my time on, but to have been involved in all four throughout the first semester of my freshman year would have put too great a demand on my time.

As a freshman, it’s important just to spend some time getting to know the campus, meeting new people and exploring the city. Involvement in campus organizations is, in my experience, a great way to do this, but it’s also important to avoid too many commitments.

Thankfully, it worked out that the two groups I stuck with as a freshman gave me plenty of opportunity to get involved on campus while also leaving me with enough free time to do some exploring on my own.

When you do settle on one or two campus organizations to stick with, it is important to become truly involved in their meetings and activities. Sure, it’s possible to be a member of an organization and just attend one or two events a month, but I only really started to get anything out of my extracurricular activities when I started to contribute more of my time and energy to the groups I had joined.

Be prepared to sacrifice a few hours of the weekend to a group activity, and don’t be afraid to apply for a leadership position as a freshman. The more you put into a campus organization, the more you’ll get out of it.

Another important realization that I’ve come to while looking back on my freshman experience is that participation in student groups on campus taught me just as much or more about myself and the subjects I was interested in as did my academic work.

Student leaders of the organizations I was involved in were often there to give me advice or help me out with a problem I was having as a freshman. Their help made freshman year not only bearable but also rewarding and enjoyable.

Don’t be afraid to turn to student leaders on campus for advice as a freshman. In my experience, they are some of the best resources on campus because they survived the same things you are experiencing.

My final point is that campus organizations provide a great sense of community. Work and social activities often go hand in hand at student organizations in a way that forms strong bonds between group members.

Many of my best friends from Pitt are the people that I lived with in the dorms as a freshman, but even more of my friends are people I worked with in student groups. It is important to develop these friendships because their support will make the difficult times of freshman year easier and the good times of freshman year better.

Don’t let these opportunities pass you by as a freshman. Attend the Activities Fair, join the groups that interest you, and get involved as early as possible. The activities that you take part in as a freshman are part of the foundation for your success during the rest of your years at Pitt.

E-mail Giles at [email protected].