Brigham Young University

By far the best advice if you're a freshman in Provo is to not get caught by University Parking Enforcement. Make sure you know the rules of every housing complex that you visit. Make sure that your parking stickers are up-to-date. Everything, because they will tow you and they will boot you and it gets expensive.

All right, some freshman advice that I'd give to all those freshmen out there would be to treat school like a job. In fact, I got this advice from my dad but it was to go to the library at 9 a.m. and don't leave until 5 p.m. It was arduous and it's an annoying task but I really find myself searching for things to study to do. In turn, you'll get good grades, you'll also meet a lot of cool people at the library, you'll familiarize yourself a lot with so I would really recommend treating school like a job, 9 to 5.

Be best friends with the TAs in your classes. Seriously, they can make such a difference. They know what's going to be on the test, they know how assignments are going to be graded, so if you go in to the TA lab or use the TA hours, you can really get ahead in classes.

My main advice I would give to freshmen is just kind of pace yourself. You don't really need to like blast through college but you also didn't need to pick a major right off the bat and I think the major parts like picking a major is the most important. So like maybe spend the first couple years just getting generals down because you can easily get like a lot of any major courses that you decide to change to if you decide to change down in about two, two and a half years. So you got like one and a half, if not a little longer to decide that. So that's my main advice.

I feel like for me, one thing that helped as a freshman is just really trying to stay on top of everything. So if you have a planner, please, please, please bring your planner and she's going to help you divide up your time so that you have time to be social, you have time to be spiritual, you have time to get your academics done. So going to school is not just about getting good grades, but it's having good balance. So I think planning, planning in advance, doing weekly planning if you served a mission before, just getting into the habit of planning every week would really help with that.

Talking to just one person in every single one of your classes, getting to know someone each day, is something that's really helped me to have a good start at BYU. Just right from the get-go, making that commitment to go and talk with people and try to get to know this university and the students here better, really helped me to gain a lot of friends when I first came here, but also to have a lot of great memories in those classes too now that I had friends in those classes. So I think just opening your mouth, having a little bit of confidence and trying to understand others is really what's made my BYU experience really kind of special.

My advice is if you ever walk up these stairs, don't talk much so I'm gonna end the video right here.

If I had to do it again, I would study more. A lot of the early classes were easy, so I thought that the experience would be easier, and it got harder as it went. One thing that I always found interesting was going down to the library to study, but I always ended up falling asleep. So if I needed a good nap, there was a place to study.

I like to tell all BYU prospective freshmen that BYU is an interesting math problem that you've never been presented before, that there are 30-35,000 members of the church at BYU, and mathematically speaking, there's a high percentage chance that you're going to run into members of the church and students at BYU who you disagree with a lot, and you might even dislike them, and that can be super frustrating, and you may have bad luck that one of those people may be your roommate, and that can be really frustrating, but here's the truth. If you're patient and you wait, mathematically speaking, there's people who you definitely jive with. There's 30-35,000 people there at BYU. Keep your eyes open and you'll find someone.

I personally would recommend taking the easier professors for classes using Rate My Professor so you can get a 3.9 or 4.0 GPA and not have to pay for tuition, get scholarships. I would also recommend taking classes that give you lots of technical skills, marketable skills. I'd also recommend looking for a future spouse because there's tons of wonderful people there that you could search out to find your future spouse. Choir is awesome, I don't think you need a car when you're at BYU. And more than anything I'd recommend praying for guidance so you choose a meaningful career not based alone on the amount of money you could make but an impact that you could make on the world. I'd also suggest getting involved in the service projects on campus and also making it a habit to go with some friends to devotional every Tuesday.

Do what you want to do. Now my freshman year I came to BYU and there was so much going on and you know classes and everything but I knew that I wanted to have a good time. I knew I wanted to make friends and I knew I wanted to explore things I was interested in like music. I really enjoyed singing so I took time to try out for one of the BYU choirs and I happened to make it and that was great you know and I tried to be active in my campus community like in my singles ward and I made so many friends and I just made an effort to go out like to ward activities and meet people and to make friends with people with me in the choir and in classes. You know just try to try to meet people and make friends wherever you go. You won't hit it off with everybody but you'll hit it off with most people and there's just good times to be had. You know if you're looking to have a good time to be nice and meet people then you will. You'll find what you're looking for.

The professor will probably share the slides. This means that you do not have to write down every word that's on the slides because you'll already have access to that. You do not have to take a picture of every slide because the professor already gives you the slides. So don't waste your time and don't waste everybody else's time saying, hey, can you go back to that slide so I can write it down? No, he already gave it to you. You already have access to it. You don't need to do that. Save us all some time. Thank you.

College is both easier and harder than you think. It's easier in that, no, you don't have to show up to class and you still kind of can pass, but that doesn't mean you should skip class. If you do, you're not going to get amazing grades and therefore you're going to have a harder time in college. So go to class, but also if you need to skip a class, not a big deal.

Another piece of advice that I would offer to freshmen is to create a routine. You may not think that you're a morning person, but anybody can be. And it's really easy to get locked in this trap of going to bed at four or three and then waking up really, really late. And then it can put a lot of stress on you and a lot of stress on your classes. So it's nice to just make those rules and set that routine early on so that you don't have to go back later and try to correct or backtrack on any mistakes that you've made.

I think freshman advice, one of the things that's most important is going to church, being social, and just talking to people. If you if you don't want to talk to people and you just sit in your room you're not gonna just make a lot of friends so just be just be social even if it's awkward for you. I would suggest for your freshman year especially just take it easy on the class so there's a lot of adjustment and so there's a big difference between college and high school so take it easy especially your first semester to get into the groove.

Advice I give to freshmen is this, find a balance. School is important and you need to learn, but there's so much more to BYU and to college than just the classes. Get involved with the sporting events or extracurricular, do activities in your ward, but get involved. It's not always all just about studying.

Pay attention to the resources that your department offers, especially on the website, and even reach out to your teachers and ask, because there are resources out there that you may not know about yet, but you'll want to know sooner than later.

Freshman advice, I think for me, Freshman Academy was a super cool thing. Gave me an opportunity to to get acclimated, especially I was living at home, so since I was local. Also gives you, since you take the same classes with all the people in Freshman Academy, it's a pretty natural transition to learn to study together, which is, I think, an important skill in college. So, definitely recommend looking into signing up for Freshman Academy, again, assuming that's still a thing at BYU.

One big piece of advice I have is get an on-campus job where you can learn about other departments and stuff like that. My first on-campus job was janitorial and that wasn't super helpful for that but once I got an office job that really helped me to know kind of how the different departments on campus work and I'm able to explain a lot of it to other people which I don't know has made me know about more of the resources that are available at BYU. Another thing that's good advice is right when I got to BYU I expected to have a social life that was like immediate that I would have friends and then I realized like after like halfway through the first semester that I still had no friends that I made at BYU and so definitely like at first I wish I just focused on schoolwork and doing that and then afterward you can along the way sit by people make friends do the best you can.

So if I was able to give my freshman self-advice, it would be to not feel so much pressure to know what I want to do. I wish I would have enjoyed taking fun classes and electives more rather than just focusing on getting my generals and my major classes done. So I would say just enjoy, but I would also say to not enjoy too much because your freshman year does matter. And so to just make sure to prioritize school while still not putting too much pressure on yourself to have everything figured out.

One of the best advice that I could offer to freshmen is that it's really easy to get latched on to your roommate especially because you're spending a lot of your time with them and they're technically your first friend at BYU for most people in most cases but I would recommend that there you wouldn't do that you shouldn't get attached to your freshman roommate and instead you should branch out and try to make as many friends as possible get into as many friend groups as possible like just be as extroverted as you can be and if it does or doesn't involve your roommate that's great but you shouldn't you know just isolate yourself with your roommate.

Don't skip class. I know there are usually readings that go along with class and you might be able to see the lecture notes afterwards, but I recommend, I don't think anything beats going actually to class and listening to what the professor has to say and taking good notes. In my experience, that's usually what shows up on the test is what the professor says, not exactly what is written in the textbook, even though the textbook is important. So go to class, pay attention, and take good notes.

Take the fun class. That class that you think is so interesting, sounds so fun, and you really want to try it, but it's not in your major, and it's not in your minor, and it doesn't have anything to do with what you want to do. Take the class. Take the class. This is the only time in your life that you will have the opportunities to take whatever classes you want and learn about whatever you want. And, I mean, once you hit full-time as a student, the price is the same anyways. So, like, just take the class. Even audit the class that you want to. But I just think it would be so sad if you went through your whole college experience, rushed through in three years, and you look back and you're like, I never took that language class I wanted to, or the dance class, or whatever. Like, just take it, because you will not regret it. Those classes have been my favorite classes every semester. So, take the class.

I have some good freshman advice. Go to school. Yeah.

So my freshman year was really hard. I had a lot on my plate and I took some really hard classes that I wasn't really prepared for. I was a really good student in high school as I'm sure pretty much everyone that was at BYU was and I'd never really had to study before so I thought I would just like blow through freshman year and it would be easy peasy but it wasn't and so my biggest piece of advice for freshmen is don't overestimate your abilities and I don't mean that in a bad way but just take classes that you think you'll be able to manage and then once you get your feet under you take those higher level classes because you'll learn study habits in your freshman year that will bless you for the rest of your college experience.

Honestly, it's one of the biggest things I've seen is just to manage your time. A lot of people say how hard BYU is, and it is a little, it is a little intense. There's a lot of intensity and a lot that you have to get done. But it's never something that's unmanageable. It's always something that you can do and get done. It's just a matter of putting in the time and planning ahead and you're going to be sacrificing some social opportunities. So you can't go to everything every single night. And sometimes you may have to take a week and just not be able to do too many activities, but you still have plenty of time to do all those things. You just have to be smart about how you balance your time. And even though my professor may scare you a little bit, really, all the professors are there to help you and they totally give you the materials and the resources you need to succeed. But it just comes down to you managing your time. Everyone can get it done. It's just a matter of how much you're willing to put in.

Get involved, get involved in everything you can. Get involved with your ward, get involved with your college. Maybe you don't know, maybe you don't have an official college yet, you don't know what you want to study, but go to some extra forums, get involved in some clubs. The more involved you are, the more fun you are going to have.

My advice to any incoming freshman is to do what you want and don't let you hold yourself back. I know there are multiple times that I let fear hold me back so I was like oh I'm not good enough for that class or I shouldn't audition for this and don't be the one to tell yourself no. Let them tell you no because then at least you have your foot in the door and you have that experience under your belt versus later on realizing that like you could have done that and having this what-if factor rather than just putting yourself out there and like don't tell yourself no you're in this like really great part of your life you tell yourself yes and let someone else tell you no.

I'm on my senior year so it's been it's been a while since I've been a freshman but I've been able to attend college with my sister and my brother during their freshman years and so I give this advice to them and I give it to anyone else really just just get involved do anything go to the sporting events go to clubs talk to people on campus honestly do not have headphones headphones are the worst you're like your worst enemy when you're when you're on campus you miss out on a lot of things just because you're focused on your music you're focused on on whatever you're not paying attention to the people around you if you don't have headphones in you're more likely to talk to somebody strike up a conversation with somebody ask a girl out any number of things so that's that's my advice get involved and don't have headphones

Try and have friends that you are pretty close to in every class, or make a friend. Because it really helps to have someone to ask when's the test, or what's going to be on the test, or study with. So try and meet people who are taking the same classes as you.

Push yourself out of your comfort zone. You are going to make so many friends your freshman year, you're going to meet so many people, but really try to like make those true friendships and connect with people because those people are going to stay with you throughout your entire college experience. If you can land yourself in a really good friend group your first year, you're going to be ready to go for the rest of your college experience.

I think the best piece of advice that I could give for freshmen, I guess in a social sense, is to not settle into one group of people and one group of like friends. Like obviously you can have your best friends and everything, but one of the great things about the freshman experience that I had personally, I lived at Helaman Halls and I feel like I just had so many different people that I knew and I could hop around different friend groups and you know bring them together and that was just a really great time in my life to do that. I feel like BYU is very conducive to people being friendly and people introducing themselves and being introduced and so that's one piece of advice I would give to freshmen.

People recommend taking all of your GEs, your first year, especially if you don't know what you want to major in. And while that may be good, there are a lot of classes that can help you figure out what you want to do and what you want to major in. And I think those have been really valuable to me and those have been really valuable to a bunch of other people that I know. And you don't know that you don't like something or that you do like something until you try it. And so taking just a few credits each semester to try some things out if you're not sure what you want to major in can be really good. And then those GEs can just fill in the gaps along the way. And I'm an engineering major and so there's a lot of math and science. And so having a GE class in the middle just breaks up the pace so I'm not just doing a lot of math and science all the time. I have a history class as well. And so it just gives more variety throughout the whole four years or however long it takes you to graduate.

One of the best things you can do is make sure you develop good study habits and also make sure that you don't take on too much of a load with your classes. Don't take American Heritage your first or second semester. It's a killer and a big reason why is a lot of people don't know how a college class works and also I would definitely say give it time. It took me about a year to really get adjusted to feel like I feel like it was home. Also, yeah school is most important but have fun, enjoy things, get to know your neighbors, people in classes. It really is such a great time.

My advice to all freshmen entering BYU is simply to get involved. I did not attend BYU my first year of college. I transferred to BYU as a sophomore. I guess my freshman year was at a different university, but nonetheless my advice would be to get involved. Find out what's happening in your ward, in your building that you live in, or what's going on on campus, or go to the devotionals. Whatever interests you, go find it because it's somewhere on campus. It's really important that you get off to a good start and get involved so that you don't feel lonely and alone. College is a big change from high school and leaving home and all those things, so to me the best medicine was simply jump in and get involved. Find what you like and go for it.

If I had a redo, I would not have gone to BYU with my best friends and roomed with them. I found that stifling. When you get to go to college, what a great opportunity to reinvent yourself into who you're going to be and leave high school behind. And making friends, and you make a lot of new friends that you won't make if you're just hanging with your old group. So I would recommend to just branch out and make new friends. I always tried to make at least a new friend a week, and that was really fun. And including dating, I always tried to at least date once a week. You have a lot more opportunities than that, but you're awfully busy. But stretch yourself. Stretch yourself.

We all know dorms and apartments have like zero much storage, so definitely go to like the Dollar Tree and pick up some over-the-door hangers. They are so helpful for just hanging up your jacket or any other, your purses, any of that kind of stuff to give you that little extra storage when you don't have enough hangers. Definitely make time to go to the devotionals every Tuesday. They're a great way to spend an hour to just get that little injection of of the Spirit of God in you to help you really boost yourself for the next couple days with your classes and all the stress that comes with that.

If you are coming from out of state and are not planning on going home very much, my strong suggestion to you is, as soon as you can, try to find friends who are also from out of state who are unlikely to go home. I know some folks who got pretty lonely their freshman year because, by chance, they were roommates with a bunch of good people from Salt Lake who had a on the weekends and not come to church with the ward and it made their freshman experience more difficult. So find some friends. If you're coming from out of state, find some other out-of-state friends. And there's tons. Most people at BYU don't go home for the weekends, but there are some. It's not a commuter school like Utah, but there are some wonderful people who go home. So try to find some out-of-state friends.

As a freshman at BYU, I feel like my experience is pretty recent and pretty fresh. My biggest advice honestly would be just to not stress it going into it. I was really stressed coming to college before my first semester because I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how hard it was going to be or what was going to be required of me and it really got me pretty stressed out, but I would just say to not let the stress get the best of you before coming to school because it's honestly not as bad or stressful as you may think it is coming here for the first time or whatever university it may be. But my advice is to just take it one day at a time, to just have faith and just do what you can in the moment and as long as you just try to stay on top of things and you do your best, then things are going to work out great.

Something I would suggest is just making sure you make time to eat good meals. It's really hard to function as a student or just a human being when you haven't been eating well and it's also really expensive to buy fast food or be always buying convenience foods so I would try to make food that's full of fresh fruits and vegetables. It can be really simple, it can be a wrap or a salad or something that just takes five or ten minutes to make and eat but it really makes you feel better and it's a little easier on your bank account.

This is not like inspirational or gonna help your life or anything, but my advice to you is to number one, try and get as much, well basically the whole thing, try and get as much free stuff as you can. Food? Great. Find someone who lives in Helaman if you don't live in Helaman because they have too much money on their meal plans and I had like, all of my friends lived in Helaman and they basically just traded off buying all of my meals freshman year and it was really great and worked out really great for me. The second thing is get as many free t-shirts as you can. Me and my friends also did like a group chat and if you saw free t-shirts on campus or free anything really, you texted the group chat so we could go and get it and I now like four or five years later still exercise and sleep in all of my free t-shirts and it's just been really handy. Haven't had to buy BYU stuff very much, so love it.

Ladies, when you're making your net ID, don't use your last name. If you get married, then you can't change it.

My biggest piece of advice is to not stress out, especially at the beginning, which is way easier said than done, but like, just understand, especially if you're taking a lot of freshman courses, which I encourage, like, at the beginning of your time, like, don't be too overwhelmed by, like, the different courses and the different, like, if some use Learning Suite or Canva or Canvas, like, it's okay, like, you're gonna figure it out, you're gonna become a pro. Don't worry if you haven't made friends, like, in the first week or two, like, you don't feel like you have your BFFs yet, like, it takes time for all those things until you get used to it, so just give yourself the benefit of the doubt and know that it's all gonna work out.

This is going out to all the ladies out there, but my advice is be bold and speak up because it's been proven that sometimes women aren't heard as much or their voice isn't given as much credit at the table and that you can just ignore that because you can do absolutely anything and you are qualified and I think so often we doubt ourselves or we think oh someone else has something better to say or oh I don't have anything all that significant to contribute. No, because your voice matters and in my lectures I've made a really big point about calling out comments that are misogynistic or assumptions that I don't like or in a very polite way but saying oh that's actually not okay because I have had lots of discussions where the guys are dominating or where they're saying things that just aren't antiquated and aren't true anymore and so be bold and call it out and speak up because you need to.

Talk to your freshman mentor. I think that's what they're called. They're there to help you, and I know I had a lot of questions when I was a freshman, but I just didn't really want to ask them. And now I'm like wishing that I did. You can ask them just like, how do I talk with TAs? How do I work like the math lab? All that kind of stuff. They're there to help you, and it'll be super helpful if you do that. And then also just take the time that you need to study. And you know, it's super fun to be out and like hanging out with friends, but make sure that you prioritize your studies, because if you get good grades your freshman semester, then you can have scholarships, and you don't have to pay for school. So study and talk to your freshman mentor.

As a resident assistant, I worked with a lot of freshmen on campus and I'd recommend just trying to do as much fun things as you can. Don't stress too much about your grades and everything. You're going to do well. You're going to do good in your classes. Just make sure to take time to have fun with your roommates, with your people in the ward. It really makes an impact on your first year.

I would definitely say that it's your time to kind of figure yourself out and find your own groups. I know a lot of people, at least for me, I was best friends with my whole friend group since kindergarten and we were kind of just built into that and we had very similar interests and things like that and now it's so much bigger being at a university that you can kind of just explore on your own and kind of figure out what type of people you like to be around and try and refrain from just conforming to what everyone else is doing because you have so many opportunities in front of you and you're going to change your mind so many times about so many different things so it's really important to get to know yourself and what you like to do and who you like to be around.

The best piece of freshman advice I could give is that the Cannon Center is not as bad as everyone says it is. I love the Cannon Center.

A piece of advice I would give to freshmen is just to be patient with yourself and not overload yourself. Don't feel pressured to take too many credits at once but feel free to kind of ease your way into college as well as have good habits. Don't stay up super late every single night but get enough sleep and have good habits that will help you to be successful.

If you are going into like the medical field or law school or things where you have to do education, like further education, take your generals in your last year if possible because usually those are the ones people do the worst at like grade-wise and you don't want that to affect your GPA going into and applying for further school. I'm a PT so I had to go to grad school. I got my doctorate and I did all the classes that I was interested in and I got way better grades and then when I got into school I pulled straight D's my entire all of my generals and civilizations credits and it did not impact me going to PT school at all and it was a really really fun semester all of a sudden having to pull nothing but D's. It was great.

I think especially as a freshman, it's super important to just get out of your comfort zone, go to events, go to places, meet people, talk to people, even when it's uncomfortable make connections with others because I think being a freshman is such a special and unique time and circumstance where everybody around you, all of your peers are also in a new place and they're also looking for new friends and new connections and everybody's just so open to doing that sort of thing. So even though it's scary, I would recommend getting out of your comfort zone and making new friends and meeting new people.

Go and try new things. There's so many things here at BYU you can do and a lot of them are awesome and great ways to meet other people, so that'd be my advice is to go and try new things.

Don't be afraid to use the TAs. Go to the TA labs. I think sometimes we get caught up and just being embarrassed that we need help, but they are there to help us. They are there to make sure that our lives are easier, and it's okay that we don't understand concepts the first time, and so just use all those resources and go to the TA labs. No one's going to think any differently of you going to them, so just use them.

I would say when you go to class, just talk to the people around you wherever you sit next to. You never know, you might not ever see them again or talk to them again, but sometimes you will. And some of my best friends have come from just like simply talking to the person next to me and we've hit it off. And you never know. And it's always good to have a study buddy too, someone in the class to talk to if you have an assignment coming up or you want to study for a test. Just talk to the people in class, just like introduce yourself, even if it doesn't go anywhere. It's just a really nice thing to do. It's really polite, so.

One thing that's been really helpful since my time as a freshman here at BYU has just been to remove things that stress you out. So, doing anything that you can to eliminate stress from your life and focus on that which is most important is really key, especially as a freshman. When you learn to prioritize, when you learn to balance, just life becomes a whole lot, I think, easier and capable of managing. So, letting things go that are not necessarily important in your life and focusing on, you know, what makes you happy and what draws you closer to your Heavenly Father, I think, is super important here. But, do all you can to eliminate stress.

Don't come into BYU thinking you're going to meet the love of your life in the first week. Don't come into BYU thinking you're going to meet the love of your life in the first month. Don't come into BYU thinking you're going to meet the love of your life in the first semester. Don't come into BYU thinking you're going to meet the love of your life in the first two or three years. Come into BYU thinking you'll get an education, thinking about how you'll better yourself, think about how you'll learn and you'll grow, thinking about what you can do for other people and how you can become a better person, and eventually you might meet the love of your life. I accidentally met mine here. It just happens. Sit back, relax, you'll be fine.

Go to everything and just involve yourself and because it will be so worth it in the end. Like the beginning is super uncomfortable and scary but then it's so rewarding when you make so many friends and just have a bunch of fun. So go to everything the very first couple weeks and also like branch out, go to ward activities and FHE and stuff.

Don't let your grades, I guess, determine your happiness. I had this mindset that coming from high school that my grades are everything. I mean obviously they're really important but in reality they are not everything and so though you get like a grade that is lower than you expected it is not the end of the world and your happiness really shouldn't be it really shouldn't depend on your grades because you know there's more to life than the school obviously. Grades are important though like if you're doing like a graduate degree or something but you know it's not the end of the world if you get a grade lower than what you're expecting.

My advice to the freshmen is to make friends with everyone and to give themselves a break because college is a lot different than high school and so you need to relax with yourself.

If I could give advice to every freshman out there, I think it's just to do your best and genuinely let God do the rest or just know that if you do all that you can, whatever grade comes out or whatever becomes of your situation, you can know and take confidence that you gave it your all and there's nothing more that you could have done. I think our bests look different all the time in different classes, in different settings, in different seasons of life, and so I think give yourself grace and I would say just roll with the punches and just take time to enjoy it. I think my freshman year I was caught up in a lot of whirlwinds and I think just do what is best for you and do your best. I know it might sound like a broken record and maybe that's obvious advice but I wish I would have really taken it to heart my freshman year and just to embrace every moment and love it all.

Freshman advice is to live on campus and get a food pass. Buy one of those so you don't have to worry about cooking and that way you can just spend your time studying or in social activities but you don't have to worry about cooking your own food. I thought that was well worth the price.

So I know a lot of freshmen who come in don't exactly know what they're doing yet as far as a career goes and so I think sometimes that leads to them not knowing how to fill their schedule and I would just let them know that by taking intro classes for majors that you're maybe interested in or just wanting to try out, like that doesn't mean you have to commit. I think that it's good to actually fill your two, you know, first semesters here at BYU with a bunch of intro classes to a bunch of different majors so you can really see what you want. I know a lot of people who started school with me but are still way behind me because instead of, you know, trying out a bunch of classes their freshman year, they just did a lot of swap classes or elective classes which definitely isn't bad because you need those as well but then you just end up like dragging on your schooling for a really long time and so just trying to get in and know what you want as soon as you can is very good.

Okay, another thing I recommend is getting involved in your ward. That is another great way that I've been able to make a ton of friends. Go to every activity, go to FHE, go to church on Sunday. There's so many fun activities that they plan and just get involved and don't act like you're too cool for church. Like it's really so, you get so much more out of it if you just fully commit and I've made so many friends from my ward and stuff. So that's another thing I totally recommend. It'll make your church experience so much better if you just go to everything and fully commit.

One of the biggest things that I can advise freshmen to do is just put yourself out there. Everyone freshman year doesn't know people. I came from, I was the only person from my high school and from my area that went to BYU and honestly just putting myself out there and making sure that I was a friendly face that remembered people's names that just just seriously like being confident in yourself in that first couple weeks is super important and then people will always say hi to you and everything and it helps make BYU, this new place, feel so much more like home.

My best advice for an incoming freshman is to be super involved with your YSA award as much as you can. Honestly, my choice to be involved in my YSA award changed my entire freshman experience. That's where all of my friends came from and because we were all friends and doing the the same award activities, the activities just became that much more fun and we had a great time. So be involved with your award and you'll have a bunch of automatic friends.

The best freshman advice is to learn how to live with roommates. Roommates is one of the most challenging parts of coming to BYU or really any college. And you're always going to be put with someone that you might not mesh with super well. But the best advice for that is to just show them a little bit of grace. And just remember that they're a person too. And if you fight a lot, they're going to be your roommate regardless. So you might as well make the situation better by trying to be the best friend that you can be.

So my freshman advice would be, especially if you're not sure what you want to do, what you want to study, what workforce you want to go into, I would recommend taking a lot of intro classes just kind of get a feel of what's out there. BOU has a lot of good selections of classes you can take to get introduced to different subjects in the work field, so I definitely recommend taking intro classes your first couple semesters.

Freshmen, my piece of advice is to take one of the student classes, one of your first two semesters, if it be the learning or the leadership classes. They just really help you establish good time management, understand how to study, how to do really well on tests. Really good class.

One of the hardest parts of college is honestly just managing your time and everything as far as like having a social life, dating life, balancing school, work. So one of the best things, if not the best thing, that you can do to be able to get to everything you need to is to keep a calendar, to schedule your time, write down your tasks. Sometimes it's easy to get into the mindset of, oh everything will just kind of get itself done, but just be careful, be thorough with the way you plan your time and it'll go a lot better for you.

My advice for freshmen is to just not take yourself too seriously. I think a lot of kids come out of high school where that is very normal. People tend to think a lot about themselves and what other people think about them. I think that's just the mindset high schoolers have, there's nothing wrong with that. But here at BYU, it's definitely not like that and it's something that I really appreciate about the BYU culture. And so for incoming freshmen, just know that you can be yourself here and that's when you will find yourself. And I know that sounds cheesy, but I think that as you're yourself, you'll also find your people. I think that's something I was really worried about coming into BYU was finding my people. I kind of started over as far as friends go. And it was the best thing ever because I was able to meet so many new people as I just committed to being myself and it was amazing.

One thing that I would recommend since I'm a freshman is just getting outside your comfort zone the first few weeks. It's awkward to just go up and talk to everyone, but everyone's doing it. No one has friends, everyone's trying to make friends, and so just get out of your comfort zone and go up and talk to people, and also pray about it. If you're struggling, just pray that you can find friends, and I have been blessed to meet so many amazing friends my freshman year, even though the first few weeks were awkward and I had to get out of my comfort zone.

Make the most of your experience at BYU by participating as much as possible, whether that be in your classes, in clubs, with your roommates, getting to know them, in your ward. I think one of the best ways that you can get the most out of your experience is by putting yourself out there and meeting lots of people, because you never know, those people might turn out to be your best friends.

Take UNIV 101 with Professor Vaughn Wayne and don't procrastinate on your classes. Also, pray every day. Yeah. Bye.

So freshmen can join any club for free, which is so incredible. I would go swing dancing every single week and it was so fun. And then you can go to like the finance club, which you have to pay for to get into for free. So there's so much. And if you're exploring like majors, you're trying to figure out what you want to do, like go to clubs, get involved, and that'll help you figure out what you want to do. And it's all for free. So you can go as many times as you want. You can go a couple of times and it's just a super cool opportunity to get involved. So utilize that. Don't make my mistake.

Definitely add money into your BYU card because you save taxes.

As far as like finding places on campus to study, you don't always need to go to the library. The library gets super crowded super quick throughout like most of the day, so just explore some different buildings, find your space, find what you like. There are plenty of places to get work done in almost all the buildings, so find your place. There are a lot of good spots on campus other than the library to get work done.

Know your resources. You'll probably take a unit 101 class and they'll tell you about these resources, but Like those and your peer mentor actually so huge to Knowing like having access like you need help finding a job. There's like you will be help you with that You need scholarships to let them know what classes you should take for a major you're exploring Like they like the resources are there I'll help you and there's actually more you look down to it the more things and opportunities that you sign So that's how I was able to Get in contact with people who have never an internship. That's how I figured out I made a map for my classes and look at other majors too. It's just really good. So that would be my freshman advice TDS

I'm still a freshman, but if I could give advice to myself last semester, it would probably be to just put yourself out there, make yourself uncomfortable, meet new people, go to everything, because it just makes your experience more fun, and when you have a lot of friends, it makes college more fun and enjoyable.

For my freshman advice, I would say the one thing I wish I would have done more my freshman year is join clubs. I think finding ways to just meet people that have your similar interests. I think BYUSA is a great one to join because you can find there's a lot of different like clubs within BYUSA or teams that you can join, so I think that's a really good place to meet people. I also wish I would have known to talk to the TAs more and get their help a lot because that is literally their job to help you, so I would say yeah meeting with the TAs more, finding clubs, I would say attend ward activities because a lot of people are just trying to make friends. I know it probably doesn't feel like it sometimes, but most people are there to make friends, so you're not alone and that's the other thing. Everyone's in your same shoes, everyone's a freshman, everyone feels silly sometimes, so yeah.

So my advice to my freshman self would have been to schedule fun into my academic schedule, not schedule some academics into my fun schedule. Because I can say that my freshman year that the only thing that really got dramatically better was my skiing.

My next piece of advice for freshmen may seem a little bit funny, but it's to live at the dorms either in Helaman Halls or Heritage Halls. I think that, you know, there's definitely apartment complexes out there where freshmen can live because there's BYU-approved housing, but there is nothing like the BYU on-campus experience. I think it's great for your first year because you're going to be on campus a lot, you're going to be surrounded by a lot of other first years, and so you'll find that support that you need to get used to college. And then it also just helps you stay more involved in BYU, whether that be clubs or sporting events. It, again, just helps you to get to know people quicker, especially people that are in your same boat. And there will always be time to live off of campus or live in a nicer place. You have many years for that, so live in the dorms. It's so much fun. I met my best friends there.

My freshman advice to you is to go to the devotionals in person as much as you possibly can. As a freshman, you're most likely going to be living on campus. If not, you're still in off-campus housing that's probably fairly close. Either way, you should try and make it a priority to go to those devotionals in person. I know you can go to them in person every other year, but there's something about it going your freshman year that has truly made an impact on my freshman year. I feel like I take away so much from those. I've handwritten my insights, and I've loved it having it in a journal. I have the journal. I love looking back and reading what I've written down, and I love going back and listening to them too. So I highly recommend going to them in person. There's just a special spirit there, and when the whole campus just stops to meet in one place, it's so special. So I highly recommend going to those in person.

Through currently being a freshman myself, I feel like some advice I would give is definitely using your resources as much as possible. There is definitely so many different resources BYU has. I think reaching out to advisors to help you with classes is very important. It definitely helped me a lot to know like what classes I should take because definitely being starting, being new, I didn't really know what classes to take and I think that was very helpful.

Do not worry about those first couple of grades that you get. I think everyone who's gone to BYU has a kind of experience having a grade that they weren't really happy with or that they weren't expecting. A lot of times we come from a high school era where we're used to getting A's and B's completely throughout and don't freak out about that first C. Like it's okay, BYU is hard. It's not going to destroy your GPA. It's not going to destroy your chances of getting into the program you want. Work hard and fix it, but don't stress about it right then and there. It's going to be okay. It's going to be totally fine.

Something that I wish I did more of my freshman year was to have scheduled breaks throughout the week from the hustle bustle of school. It can be easy to kind of just drown in homework all the time and work and sometimes you kind of wait around for some free time to come up to be able to take a break but honestly college gets really busy and so sometimes you have to have scheduled breaks for yourself. So if you want to be able to keep up and not get burned out really quick, I definitely got burned out. Take breaks throughout the week, do something fun in the middle of the week with friends, don't necessarily wait till the weekend to take a break, just even throughout the day just take a little bit of time for yourself to recharge, rejuvenate even if it's just something small. It's really easy to get burned out in college especially when midterms and finals hit so make sure to schedule times for yourself to rejuvenate.

Attend everything you can, so whether it be club days or get-togethers with people from your class or Wednesday night activities or family evening, all your like freshman YSA awards. Attend everything, meet new people. If you get invited to something, go to it and plan things and then invite all the people you meet.

Have fun, because it's the only year where you can really have fun without it affecting your GPA too much, without having too many consequences, because you're at the beginning of college and you're still like figuring out what you want to do, so it's just less pressure. So go out and have fun.

I would say the best freshman advice that I got when I first got to college was to utilize your TAs. They are there to help you and I wish I would have listened because I did not talk to a single one of my TAs and they are there literally just to help with your grade and to help you pass the class. So set up a meeting with them if you need, email them, ask them questions and they can kind of help clarify the things that the professor is needing.

Some freshman advice I have is for taking classes. So your first semester, I would recommend not taking any more than 14 credits. I would recommend just taking 12 and just getting used to kind of everything. If you're able to not work, then just only focus on school, focus on your social life, your roommates, and that will really kind of help you feel settled into the next semesters.

Also, freshmen, there are a ton of study abroad opportunities for non-majors or major specifics that kind of get a lot of the basic classes out of the way. So if you're interested, I would definitely look those up because I took one my second semester and I went to Italy and it was just for basic classes like global and some writing classes and some religion classes. So it was super, super fun and one of my favorite semesters I've ever had. So definitely look into study abroad that BYU offers.