First Day

I know it has been a while since my last blog post, so I apologize, but life has been fairly busy for me lately!

I know that it is still the beginning of July, and really, the last thing a student wants to be thinking about in early July is school, but I'm going to give you some info on what your first day will be like!

The first day of school at UVU is an interesting thing. You will never see as many people on campus as you do the first week of a new semester. (Truth be told, usually by midterms, a lot of people aren't even coming to class anymore).

Your first day can be really scary as an incoming freshman. You don't realize how big a school can be until you are wandering around trying to find your first classroom. So here are some things that you should do/have with you before your first day:

• Log into UVLink and print off your weekly schedule. You'll want to have your class name, section number, time, teacher, and classroom number.
• I recommend that sometime before your first day of class, you go to UVU and walk around to find each of your classrooms. This will save you a lot of time on your first day! There will be a lot of people crowding the halls and if you have a class on the other side of campus, you'll want to know ahead of time.
• For most classes, you probably won't need your textbook for the very first day. But you will want to bring a notebook and pen or pencil.
• Show up early on the first day of school! There will be a lot of people trying to get on campus so the freeway and roads to the school will have heavy traffic. There will be a lot of people on campus and trying to find parking can be horrible. I recommend showing up at least half an hour before your first class begins (and factor in an additional 10-20 minutes of traffic)! If you have an early class (7 or 8 am), chances are you won't have as much traffic, but classes 9am or later will be very busy.

For an incoming freshman, I recommend buying one of the UVU student planners in the bookstore. However, you will probably receive one for free at freshman orientation (which is usually the day before school starts---this would be a good day to wander around campus to find all of your classrooms). If you don't get one at orientation (or you are simply a sophomore, junior, or senior that wants one), you can buy one in the bookstore.

The UVU student planners are helpful for several reasons. The planner contains a student handbook with e-mail addresses and phone numbers for individual departments at UVU; business hours for the library, testing center, etc.; and other important info for students. Probably the most handy thing for a freshman is the map of the school. It has all of the building names and abbreviations. (You'll most likely become familiar with all of the buildings after your first semester; it makes it easier that most people refer to each building with their abbreviation).

When looking at your schedule, your classroom number will be in this format:

LA 001

LA refers to the building that the class is in. In this case, it is the LA building, the abbreviation for Liberal Arts. 001 is the room number in the LA building. Room numbers will always be 3 digits long. The first digit is the floor that you are on- (0 is the basement in the LA building, 1 is the main floor, and 2 is upstairs; in the CS building, 4 is the main level, 5 upstairs, 6 upstairs, and 7 top floor; you'll see that every building is different but all you have to do is look at a room number to figure out which floor you are on). The 2nd and 3rd digits in the room number are the room on that floor. There are signs on each floor that direct you in the direction of the classrooms.

If you have any problem at all trying to find a classroom, there are always UVU employees by each entrance the first week of school that are happy to help you (they also have free maps if you don't want to buy a planner). Don't be afraid to ask for help! They know that UVU can be pretty confusing and they are happy to help!

In my experience, the first day of classes isn't really that stressful. I had this terrible fear that it would be like Legally Blonde and I would walk into my first class and everyone would have read several chapters from a textbook and I would just sit there saying "I wasn't aware we had reading." It's not like that at all!

The first day of classes is used for going over your class syllabus and getting to know your classmates. A syllabus is a paper that your professor gives you that has all of their contact information, office hours, any required and/or optional textbooks you will need, any additional items you may need for class, the objective of what you will learn, the attendance and participation policy, a grading rubric, etc.

A lot of students and professors will refer to the class calendar as a syllabus as well. The calendar outlines every homework assignment, test, quiz, etc that you will have for each day. Your teacher will explain to you what it is that they mean. If you are confused, make sure you ask the teacher to clarify, because there is sure to be another student that is confused as well.

(For example: as an English major, my class syllabus would have a reading assignment next to a date. Each professor has a different idea what that means. It could mean we have to have read the specific reading assignment by that certain date or that was our homework for that night. It is always best to ask rather than come to class unprepared!)

Unfortunately, there are many professors that like to make everyone introduce themselves to the class. It feels very high school, but sometimes it is good to at least know a few people. I was always shy so I hated it and would dread the first day. Things that I have done in college as a "getting to know you" exercise:

• Introduce yourself with a unique fact. If someone in the class has that unique fact , it wasn't unique enough and you have to pick something else.
• Spend time talking to your neighbor and then you introduce them.
• Everyone says their name and then everyone before them (It is just as awful as it was in high school!)
• Introduce yourself with your name, major, and where you are from.

Not that it is super important that you know those getting to know you games, I just thought it would be interesting to see that sometimes, college is still like high school!

As you go through your first day, you may have breaks inbetween classes. Take this time to walk around and get to know the campus! Find the library, go search for Jamba Juice, find all of the restrooms, go read a newspaper (which are free! UVU has several newspapers that are offered to students for free each day! UVU Review (UVU's paper, pretty sure it is weekly), Deseret News (which is a local paper in case you are from out of state), USA Today, and New York Times---occasionally, we have the Daily Herald, another local paper).

The first day of school also marks the beginning of the semester- a chance to be organized! Organization is key to being successful in college. Another reason why I love to have the UVU student planner, it helps to keep things on track!

Next post: Organization