Happy end of the school year! I cannot believe that this is my last blog post of junior year. This year has been great and has gone by incredibly fast. As with any school year, it has had its ups and downs: it has been academically challenging, and managing three jobs has not been easy. But, I have learned so much from my classes and about independence and time management.
Next week, I have two final exams – an oral exam for my Christianity class and a written exam for my macroeconomics class. Then, I have a final project for my statistics class and a final paper for my global economics class. Wish me luck on these! After finals, I am heading back home to Illinois for the summer to do an internship. I have gone abroad to India for the last two summers, so I look forward to having a summer fully at home this year.
I wanted to use this blog post to provide a mix of personal and logistical advice for incoming students reading this. I have done this end-of-the-year advice blog post at the end of my freshman and sophomore years, so I am compiling and copying all my advice from the past years below:
- Have a pair of scissors with you during move-in to open all the new items and packaging.
- Don’t be in a rush to do everything and go to Boston the very first day of orientation or something.
- In my opinion, do not take too many challenging courses during shadow grading just solely because it’s pass-fail. I feel like I did this during my first year fall, and it burned me out a little.
- Join mailing lists! The organizations fair, where student organizations have tables and recruit students, typically happens at the beginning of each semester. The fall semester orgs fair is the more important one though in my opinion. Go to orgs fair and write your name down on the interest list or mailing list of any org that sounds even a little bit interesting to you. Regardless of whether you think you’ll be an active member, just put your name down! By just being on the email list, you can learn about the events the org is hosting and internship/job opportunities. This is a major way to stay in the loop at Wellesley.
- Try applying to every type of job, joining orgs you have never thought about before, participating in all kinds of teams, and basically everything you want before you graduate and “enter the real world.” Before Wellesley, I had not thought about half of the opportunities I have received since getting here.
- Go to office hours or tutoring hours. Going to office hours when you’re struggling helps you get your questions answered. Professors want you to come and ask questions and see you understand what they’re teaching. And, it shows to them that you are making an effort to genuinely learn the material.
- As I very sagely wrote at the end of my freshmen year, “so much advice is thrown at first years (I’m doing that myself right now), but nothing will teach you more than the experience itself. So go into Wellesley with an open mind and don’t let your expectations of Wellesley or your first year of college hold you back.”
I hope this post was useful! Thank you so much to those who have read any of my blog posts this past year, I greatly appreciate it. I will be back in the fall to blog when I am a senior 😱
WZLY Birthday Party, the party for the anniversary of our student radio station’s founding
I love the Quad during nice weather, people like to sit outside and work
Eastside dorms in full bloom