Hello everyone! It is absolutely freezing in Wellesley. Right now our temperature is down to 31 degrees F and we had our first snowflakes last night. The Wellesley College campus is beautiful when it’s covered in snow so I’m kind of hoping that we get at least one big snow storm before the end of the semester. Speaking of the end of the semester…we’re basically two weeks away! I know I keep mentioning it in the blog, but time seems to absolutely fly by here. When did it become December 7th!? This week is the last week of classes and next week exam/final paper writing week begins. I think I’ll post more next week about what finals period is like here at the big W and about self scheduled vs. scheduled exams. For this week though I want to talk about making friends at Wellesley.
My FYM Group
During my senior year I panicked about leaving my friends from home behind and, gasp, having to make new ones during college! Where would these friends come from? How would I meet them? What would we do together? It all sounds very basic but for me it was terrifying. Luckily Wellesley may have anticipated this sudden shock of “Oh my goodness I need to make friends!” and conveniently created a first year mentor group program. On the first day of orientation, your first year mentor who is an upperclasswoman, leaves an anonymous note on your dorm room door inviting you to a meeting that day. Later in the day, you go to your FYM’s meeting and poof! There are about 15 others first years there ready to meet you! Of course you have to play all of those awkward icebreakers (2 truths and a lie, think up an adjective with the first letter of your name, the name game, etc.) but hey, what’s college orientation without those games?
Branching off of FYM
Your FYM group acts as a support group for you during your first year but I think it’s most helpful during orientation when you’re going through the whole initial adjustment. My FYM group did things together during orientation week like eat together at meals (I was petrified of eating alone and am starting to get over this irrational fear thank goodness), go to campus events together, walk into the ville (my FYM showed us her favorite ice cream place) and went into Boston to explore together. Also my FYM herself was able to advise me on registering for classes, adjusting to Wellesley and other college-y things. Most importantly though, I met my best friends at Wellesley through my FYM group. Those three close friends from my group gradually brought other friends from class and from their dorms into our little circle and poof! I had a solid group of friends to eat with, procrastinate with, watch movies with, talk with and go out with. I’ve made other good friends at Wellesley through a mix of classes, clubs and friends of friends. So I guess my advice on making friends is to chill out, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and just be yourself. I should really be heeding my own advice though because now I’m having the friends freakout about study abroad. Oh how history repeats itself!
On a related note to friends, one of my greatest friends from my FYM group, Sara, turned 21 today! I’m really excited because we are going to make cheese fondue (she’s from Minnesota and loves cheese) and then we’re going to go see our favorite all-male a capella group, the MIT Logarhythms (hotties and even better, SMART hotties) perform as a way of celebrating her 21st on Friday.
Link to Logs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl_fe0rq7W8
You guessed it…it’s now time for my spot of the week. This is week three of our Lake Waban series. There’s only a few more after this, I promise. The portion of the lake that we are highlighting this week is the Topiary Garden from the Hunnewell Estate. The Hunnewell’s were a philanthropic family that gave the name “Wellesley” to our fair town and college (named after a relative), as well as provided a generous amount of money to Wellesley. Their topiary gardens along Lake Waban are certainly a surprise to the first time lake goer. Enjoy!