In order to make it first your first year, you must know how to live on your own. You must have a form of discipline and that's not meaning punishing yourself. Discipline is the truest form of self-love. If you don't have discipline and you let yourself or situations walk all over you, you must do whatever is required to discover and implement discipline.
Join every activity that you can find while still being able to get your homework done, because the more activities you have, the more friends you'll have, and the less time you'll have spending at home to feel lonely and empty, and it'll just help you get out and about. And that's where you're gonna meet the people who are upperclassmen, and they're gonna help be able to just guide you around school and tell you which classes to take. And if you feel inspired to switch your majors, you'll be able to meet those people too, to help you figure out which major to do.
I struggled a lot as a freshman, particularly for the first couple of months I came. It was the first time I'd ever lived away from home. I didn't have many friends. I came up to BYU-Idaho alone and I felt really lost. I felt like I was out of my league academically, but my freshman year really, I did have a lot of growth. I would just say, make a list of things that are most important to you and then accomplish them every day, a little bit every day. You know, study. I studied, I finally got into scripture study. After I was done with my homework, I would go and I would study in the Taylor Chapel and I had some very sacred experiences there. Friends will come, put yourself out there. You're doing better than you think you are if you're struggling. Yeah, and have a good time.
The best piece of advice I could give an incoming freshman at BYU-Idaho would be to ask for help when you need help. Sometimes we make the big mistake in our pride of saying we can do it all on our own, we know enough, it'll be fine. But when you're confused, or when you're scared, when you don't know where your classes are, when you don't know what you're supposed to do with your new lease, and all these different things that you deal with your first time going to college, don't be afraid to ask for help. The teachers at BYU-Idaho are wonderful and they are there to help you. There's so many free resources on campus. If you look up anything on the student website, I'm sure you can find someone that can help you and that you can talk to about your needs. There's lots of resources out there, you just have to ask. And it's the best way to get out of the uncomfortable zone into the confident zone in college.
Get your parking pass early. If you plan to be driving around BYU-Idaho, get your parking pass when you decide on your housing or you can get them almost a semester in advance. Get your parking pass early and because if you don't, you are not going to get a parking pass. They don't have enough passes for everyone and there's always people that are looking for a parking pass last minute and are not able to get one and have to walk a mile, a couple miles from where their housing is. So if you plan to be driving, make sure that you get your parking pass early. I was lucky enough that I never had to search for a parking pass last minute but I always saw people that were always searching for one last minute. So if you're going to be driving, get that parking pass early.
Yeah, make sure to take advantage of the tutoring, the free tutoring. A lot of people, you know, I feel like they might fail some classes because yeah, college can be really hard to get used to. But yeah, there's some free tutoring for each individual class, so make sure to take advantage of that. And there's also something called the Reading Center, and they help you with like goals, they help you with whatever help you really need as you go through college. That's their whole job, and it's pretty dang nice. So yeah, make sure to take advantage of all the tutoring and the Reading Center.
The advice that I'd give freshman students is, yes, you're coming to a university where you have the potential to be accompanied and guided by the Spirit, which is awesome. You know, be as worthy as you can, but at the same time realize even though you're at a university operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the CES, um, there is opposition in all things. Don't immediately presume that all students on campus are there for the same reasons as you. Practice common sense. I mean, date in groups when you don't know the person, uh, stay in public areas. There are students who will drink, who will do drugs, who will do other things that, well, I don't have time to talk about here. Be careful, but follow the Spirit.
Go to devotional. You will not regret it. You will be spiritually fed, and there was a couple weeks that I missed devotional and I regretted it. I loved going to devotional every week. I look forward to it so much, and even if you're not feeling well or if it's way too cold and you're not able to get out, you can watch it online. I would highly recommend either attending devotional or watching it online, but it's so great to attend and to be surrounded by people who want to be spiritually fed. And when you go, bring your journal, because that was one of my favorite things is, you know, they have everybody hold up their journal to say that they're prepared for devotional. Bring your journal or some kind of notepad, not your laptop. Bring a journal, something physically that you can write in that you won't get distracted by because it's technology. Bring your journal to devotional and go to devotional. You will enjoy it and you will not regret it.
The best freshman advice I got, honestly, is that you are going to have roommates, you're going to have people that you're living with, you'll have people that you know just from your circle around your ward, whatever. Just ask them for anything. I remember my first semester I was coming in, I didn't know what the buildings were, people were talking about places that I didn't understand, I didn't know where to go for orientation or anything. I just talked to my roommates about it and they walked me through it really easily. It is really easy to get the help that you need at this school. Everybody is just willing to help you and just wants to make friends and meet new people. So that's the best freshman advice I got, is to just talk to the people around you and ask them for help. People want to help you here.
What I always did before school started is I would go and, in order, I would walk to all of my classes in order, so I kind of knew where they were, especially some of the buildings were more confusing than others. Some have like two parts and that's just a small hallway in between and it's got a lot so it's pretty fun. But I always checked it out before I went.
Go with an open mind. Don't go expecting to be at BYU. I do go to have fun and make friends and experience new things. Don't hold yourself back and just really enjoy the moment that you're in.
If you can, bring things like dishes and stuff like that with you when you first come because if you are planning to go to Walmart in Rexburg for all of your essentials before you start school, it is going to be packed and there are going to be a lot of, especially freshmen and their parents, they're buying their supplies such as dishes and clothes hangers and essential groceries and all of that kind of stuff. The Walmart is going to be packed the week before the semester starts and usually a couple weeks after the semester starts, Walmart will be cleared out of a lot of those essentials. So if you're planning to go to Walmart, either do it. If you are not an incoming student and you're planning to go to Walmart, avoid Walmart for the week before and the week after the semester starts because it's going to be really, really busy and they're going to be cleared out a lot of the essentials. So you can go to Idaho Falls, which is pretty close. There's also Rigby, which is pretty close, but the Rexburg Walmart is going to be pretty busy and pretty cleared out right at the beginning of the semester. So just be prepared for that.
My advice for freshmen would be to get to know your professors at the beginning of each semester and go to their office hours, introduce yourself and maybe come to them with any concerns you might have or questions about the syllabus. A lot of times, I don't know that I've ever had a time when they weren't willing to go over anything and then help me along throughout the semester. A lot of them were my biggest cheerleaders, so that's what I would do.
Let yourself be yourself. There are people to mesh with no matter what you're interested in, no matter what you like to do, no matter where you came from. You don't have to try to fit in with a certain crowd if it doesn't feel right. Just be you and have fun and you'll find your people and they will be the best thing to ever happen to you.
Do things out of your comfort zone. Make friends. Make connections. Go to church. Definitely go to church. Go to class. Don't skip it. You're paying a lot of money to be here. But my freshman year was the hardest because I didn't really have a lot of friends. I mostly hung out with my brother and there's nothing wrong with that. I loved it. I had a great time. But I didn't start making those lifelong connections until the next year when I was officially on my own. And I'm really grateful for the friendships that I made and the ones that have lasted. Just do something that scares you. Do something spontaneous. But listen to the spirit and stay safe.
If you have never driven on snow or ice before, and if you plan to bring your car, and if you're going to be there for winter semester or sometimes even part of spring semester, you have to be prepared to be able to drive on icy roads. And that's really, really different if you've never driven on ice before. So one of my tips if you are coming in as a freshman or just coming in and you have never driven on icy roads before, be really, really careful about driving in the winter. You can look up how to drive on icy roads, talk to your parents about it, but that's something that you really need to be cautious of and learn about because that's something you're going to have to deal with is driving on icy roads. And there's a lot of potholes around Rexburg because of the ice that happens every winter, so that's just something to be prepared for in the winter. You're going to have to plow your driveway, you're going to have to plow your sidewalk, and you're going to have to drive on icy roads. It's inevitable.
Although I'm like kind of actually pretty loud and stuff, I became more outgoing after my first semester when I was a freshman, but that was because I started meeting people in my classes and I got their phone numbers and stuff so I was able to contact them outside of class so that we weren't just like, oh I know you from that one class that we took, but you actually got to know them as a person, and so just being a little bit more outgoing, a little bit daring, because really, what's the worst that can happen? If you have a terrible day, then you have a terrible day, and then you move on, and then you try and improve the next day, and you can just make every day count, and I know that days can be crummy because, oh my gosh, mine have been crummy sometimes, but there's always a better day to come, and just talk to someone about it. Find someone, one of your friends, or something that you can vent to, because that's really helpful as well.
I'm in my second to last semester right now, but when I was a freshman here, one of the funnest things that I did was just to get out. I went to all of the school activities, I went on lots of dates, I just tried to make as many friends as possible because I'm not a people person, and so being able to, I don't know, just put myself out there and break out of my comfort zone like I did on my mission, it just made things so much easier to work through. A piece of advice I definitely recommend is getting up to school earlier than like the day of move-in day or the day before. I got up here like a week in advance and yeah, I was a little lost, but I was able to go and find all my classes, all my buildings, get all my shopping done before everything was gone. So I definitely recommend just getting up here early and getting involved.
So when I was going into my first semester at BYU-Idaho, I was like, I've never been here before. I don't know a single soul in this town. And all I know about this school is that it's like a discount BYU. But what I would say to anybody else that is in my situation, go to the, like, get involved. Go to the things that they have for the freshmen. Because when I went to those things, I was like, oh, I should have gone to the rest of them because they connected me to people in my ward that were in my same shoes, um, to a mentor that, um, that was able to kind of support me throughout the semester and give me advice and resources. They were things that connected to meet my savior when I was having a really hard time with my testimony and really give me a purpose for being there and made me realize why I was there like from the first few days. Um, and then I just got to see that throughout. It is so good.
New incoming students can get free counseling for, I think it's a couple of semesters. Take advantage of that. It is so helpful. Even if you don't think that you need a counselor, please go to counseling. It's free for the first couple semesters and it is so helpful. Even just as an upcoming freshman, starting college, there's a lot of changes happening in your life that are so helpful to talk through. So I would highly recommend taking advantage of Counseling Center because it is there to help you. And if you need counseling beyond that, you can talk to your counselor and see how it happens beyond those first two semesters. But I highly, highly recommend taking advantage of the Counseling Center because it is there for you and it is an excellent help. Even if you don't think you need it, just get a couple counseling sessions and see how it goes. But take advantage of that because it is such a great resource.
One of the things that you'll have the opportunity to do at BYU-Idaho is to have FHE with your FHE group. Usually it's going to be people that are in your apartment complex and or in your student ward and I would highly recommend participating in FHE. I had several semesters where we had some really cool FHE brothers and sisters and we did some really fun stuff and then I also had semesters where the, I will say this, the guys did not want to participate in FHE and so we just didn't do it and it made me really sad because I enjoyed FHE and we had a lot of fun times and did some fun stuff. So I'd recommend really trying to get together with your FHE group and make it fun and have a good time with it. Don't just slough it off and not do FHE with your FHE group and with your ward and with your apartment and even if your guys or your girls don't want to do it, do it with your own apartment. Just have some fun with it and bond. Take this time to bond and just have some fun with your apartment complex, with your FHE group, and with your ward.
So something about BYU-Idaho is you have to live on campus-approved housing, which means you probably have roommates, especially as a freshman, and roommates can make or break your semester. So if you start having contention with roommates or anything like that, talk to them right away. Don't just hold a grudge and start blocking them away. Just talk to them and figure it out. They can be your best friends and you want them to be your friends. Don't shut people out, even if you don't like them all the time.
You realize that you don't have to do it alone. Find a group to study with, find somebody in class that can maybe help you understand some concepts that you don't understand. Take the time to to reach out to others, reach out to your professors, to TAs. You know, there's so many resources to help and so there's not really any reason to try to do it alone. It's just going to make life a little bit harder. So you can reach out to others and help them and receive help and it'll make your your college life so much better.
Freshman advice, get on a budget and have fun. Don't forget to go to your classes, but make good friends with your roommates, clean your apartment, have good food, and just enjoy it. It's a lot of fun.
Don't plan classes for every day of the week. Most of them you could do like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or just Tuesday, Thursday. Start out that way.
A little piece of advice that I would give to myself as a freshman is to get outside and go get involved. There's so many activities, there's so many extracurriculars, there's so many things going on on campus with the school. So many things. And it's a great opportunity to serve, to learn, to meet new people, to make new friends, and to try new things. And so if you can, look into literally anything. On the school website they always have a calendar of everything that's going on, of what's going on throughout the week. And so find things that sound fun to you and grab your roommate, grab somebody from your ward, or just go by yourself because you will definitely have a good time.