It’s crazy to think that I was a wide-eyed college freshman at UW at one point. The Freshman College Experience™ was magical, exciting, fun, but also overwhelming, dreadful, and exhausting.

Even though I watched so many college-freshman-101 type videos, I still had to learn some lessons the hard way. This is a collection of some of my insights and tips. Points 1-5 will pertain to the UW specifically while the rest is general.

1. The curve

I knew it’s way harder to get a high GPA at a university. However, it is a rood awakening to discover that UW curves intro stem classes (math, general chemistry, intro biology etc) to around a 2.8 GPA. So what this means is that more than half of the students gets below a 3.0 in them.

As the name suggests, UW uses weed–out classes to destroy most people’s GPA early on to weed them out because it accepts too many students but doesn’t have enough spots for the highly sought-after stem majors (RIP CS hopefuls).

Getting into college is like the 74th Hunger Games, and getting into a major is like the Quarter Quell.

2. Carry an umbrella

There’s a stereotype that Seattle rains a lot, which is true. But when it rains, most of the time it’s a drizzle so Seatlites tend to just put up their hood.

My friends and I would joke about being able to differentiate the out-of-state and international students from the native Washingtonians by the use of umbrellas. So it was both an ego thing to identify as a true Washingtonian and a laziness thing that I didn’t carry around an umbrella during fall quarter.

However, during winter quarter when the weather got nastier, being wet and cold on top of seasonal depression was Not a Good Time. So I started carrying an umbrella at all times.

3. Seasonal depression is real

I didn’t even know this was a thing until hearing people mention it during winter quarter. I don’t hate winter, but winter in Seattle hits different. It’s not terribly cold, but the constant darkness and rain can shroud you in misery on top of the stress from academics. I stopped trying to make new friends and retreated to hanging out with people who lived close to me.

I remember dreading having to go to work at 4PM after biology lecture when the sky was already turning dark.

4. The Ave is kinda wild but not that bad

The Ave, which is a street next to campus, is the food central, but also does not have the safest reputation. We would get UW alerts about stabbings and robberies every other week. But the Ave during the day is usually fine (although a girl got slashed by a razor blade during the daytime).

Walking back to the dorms at night on the Ave even with friends can draw some predacious eyes sometimes though (especially coming back from a party), but I haven’t had any bad encounters aside from being yelled at.

5. Some classrooms are less than charming

The UW campus is stunning. The architecture and the scenery are beautiful. I thought from pictures of the Harry Potter room (Suzzallo Library), the inside of the rest of the campus would look like Hogwarts too.

But in reality, many buildings are ugly, with dim corridors and musty shady energy. You kinda get used to it though.

I remember my first time going to the Math Study Center alone. Navigating through the basement of the Communications Building was unnerving.

6. Don’t get food right after a class 

The reason being that it’s also when everyone else gets out of class and is heading toward the food. So either you dash for it or you are stuck waiting in a long line. 

7. Dorm food is as bad as it seems

“If you eat dorm food, you’ll look like dorm food”

Fung Bros

Okay first of all, spending an average of $8 per deal is on the pricier side, but that would be okay if the food actually tastes good. Or at the very least, have decent nutrition value.

I dormed in North Campus, where our dining hall is the Center Table. Like other native freshmen, I had the false impression that CT had many wonderful options. You got the “American and international dishes with the accent on contemporary, trending flavors”, the “rotating selection of noodle-themed foods”, the ” tradition of made-to-order burgers, fries and shakes” etc.

Oh but come to find out that most of the food is carby, flavorless, greasy, unappetizing, or all of the above.

The rice tastes microwaved, the noodles are dry, the pasta has no flavor, the meat is leathery, and the fish burger gave me a trip to the bathroom.

In the case where a meal has vegetables, they are often small-portioned or overcooked. The place where one could get enough vegetables to prevent constipation is from the salad bar.

People who dorm are forced to spend at least $900 per quarter on a meal plan, because god knows no one would voluntarily choose dorm food otherwise. We couldn’t substitute dorm food with cooking or outside food too much or else the unspent money would go to waste. As a top medical research institution, it boggles my mind how HFS is able to get away with serving students such trash food with low nutritional value.

8. Walking to class always takes longer than planned

This was a bad habit that I stubbornly refused to change. The greatest advantage of living on campus is accessibility. Yet somehow, I still would not leave enough time to get to my classes.

For example, it takes around 15 minutes to walk from North Campus to Condon Hall, but I would give myself only 10 minutes. As a result, I had to speed-walk and show up all sweaty and gross.

In big lecture rooms, it was less of a problem because i could just enter from the back of Kane Hall without causing much of a scene. However, in quiz sections, where the rooms were small and desks restrictive, it’s quite embarrassing. Especially for chem labs, I would be sweating but still have to put on a layer of lab coat, and also fog up my goggles. 

9. Doing too much stuff

College has a plethora of opportunities. As a typical ambitious pre-health freshman, I wanted to do it all. I started off joining all the RSOs that I was interested in, going to fun parties, and trying to make as many friends as I could. Then after 3 weeks, I burned out.

Approaching my first college midterm, I was extremely stressed out and overwhelmed. Experiencing as much as possible was the right choice. However, I had trouble admitting that I could not handle everything, and ultimately quit some involvements. I went from one extreme to the other and stopped socializing almost entirely (besides with my roommates and study groups).

As an immigrant and first gen student, I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed. At the time, sacrificing my social life and mental health for a high GPA was worth it because failure was not an option.

Fortunately, I bounced back winter quarter with a much better work-life balance.

10. The importance of not over-working and taking care of your health

This one is an extension of the previous point and is soooo cliché. However, it is human nature to just go like “ya ya whatever” until you learn lessons the hard way.

Heck, as part of the ASUW Student health consortium, I had to advocate for the importance of health, especially mental health. Ironically, health was low on my priority.

In fall quarter, despite all the self-care events at my dorm building, I could not imagine squeezing out even an hour or two to go to a de-stressing event. Besides trying new restaurants on the Ave weekly with friends, the only form of social interaction I had was with my study groups. I also just didn’t seem to have time for the gym. This in conjunction with eating dorm food, led to a very unhealthy lifestyle.

In high school, I was used to having my life together, but this is college. Also, the quarter-system pace moves so fast. I would panic and hit the grind button when there were still integrals I could not solve or chemical concepts I had yet to memorize.

In my eyes, taking breaks equaled being unproductive and overworking myself was working hard.

I realized I was burning out. But I feared that if I let my foot off the gas pedal, I would fall of the wagon completely.

Reflecting back to first quarter, I don’t regret sacrificing my mental health for a GPA that I wanted, but I have learned that it’s important to find balance. Someone who is drained from overworking does not mean that they are a great student.

11. It’s hard to make new sustainable friends 

By “sustainable”, I mean actually hanging out and keeping in touch with them after the quarter ends. My focus on studying and preference to do so alone hinders my social life to begin with. It is even harder to stay in touch with people after not sharing the same class with them anymore.

Going to a college with around 100 other students from my high school class is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s really nice starting a new chapter of life with good established friendships. On the other hand, the lack of necessity to branch out makes it easy to just stay within my bubble. The Seattle Freeze plus seasonal depression definitely worsens it too.

That’s why it’s so important to join RSOs that meet at least once a week to keep in touch with new friends. But by the time I realized that, we were thrown into the pandemic.

12. Latch onto a really smart friend or join a study group with smart people

This one is kind of luck-based. One smart friend who knows their sh*t is pretty much all you need. If not, go to the first few office hours to start/join a study group. Chances are the people there are also try-hards or at least care about their grades.

13. Exercise!

Find time to go to the gym! Or better yet, take a class in the UW dance department or join classes at the IMA. Making friends while staying in shape kills two birds with one stone.

During the fall quarter, I made so many excuses on why I couldn’t work out: “the gym is too far”, “I am too tired”, “it is too cold outside”, and (you already know this is my favorite) “I don’t have time”.

I would have stayed lazy and weak like that if I wasn’t sick of my own bullsht.

14. Leave the door open during move-in week

I don’t like to say I regret anything because you live and you learn. However if I had to pick one, not leaving our dorm room door open during the first week was one of mine and my roomates’ biggest regrets.

Transitioning to college life and getting situated had been rough to say the least. Although it is exciting to meet new people and make new friends, it can also be quite mentally taxing. We wanted to have some privacy and recharge our social batteries in our Dorm Home with the door closed, thinking there’d be plenty of time to befriend our neighbors later. Lo and behold, at around the second week, people stopped leaving their doors open. So lesson learned to not miss the window door of opportunity. 

15. The subreddit a powerful source

Every college has its sub-reddit, and I LOVE the Udub sub-reddit. It stores the immense collection of knowledge and insider advice from fellow and alum dawgs.

If you have a question, someone probably has an answer.

Since it’s anonymous, people are also more willing to express their candid opinions. There’s no sugar-coating: students will moan and groan about things such as the harsh stem weed-out curve and the competitive major system. I’m also there for the SOLID memes.

16. Study centers

With so much money you’re paying, might as well utilize the resources. Besides my dorm room and the library, the place I stayed at the most was the math study center in fall quarter and the chem study center in winter quarter. I would just bother the tutors with questions until I fully understood the topics. 

17. Practice tests are the most effective

For STEM classes, the recipe for success is just grind, rinse, and repeat. Do as many practice problems as you can and you will have encountered every type of problem there is.

I remember feeling quite hopeless learning about the long process of solving a substitution integral problem. However, once you’ve done it like 50 times, and annotated what you did wrong each time, it’ll seem pretty easy and formulaic. 

18. Space out workload

For fall quarter, I had phat calculus homework on Webassign due every Wedesnesday and phat chemitry homework on Aleks due every Sunday.

Gen chem has a lot of busy work: reading quizzes, pre-labs, and lab reports due every week. So my amateur game plan was to grind out calculus at the start of the week and leave Aleks until the day it was due.

As a result, I had a weekly scheduled mental breakdown on Sundays over chemistry.

A better method that I switched to is study/ review the hard stem class material everyday. It is less stressful and induced better retention.

19. Do your homework even if it’s optional

Many people did not do their chemistry homework (ALEKS) because it wasn’t a big portion of the overall grade (I think 10%?).

First of all, every point counts, especially in a curved weed-out class. Secondly, homework is a great tool for practice and learning. I mean they lowered the curve so bless them hahaha.

That being said, there are exceptions. For math125 (calculus), I found the HW problems on Webassign to be unnecessarily hard in comparison to the practice/old exam problems. It is wiser to prioritize getting as much relevant practice as possible. So being resourceful in completing the HW in this instance was the key to success.

20. Use a planner and stay on top of the deadlines

I ground my sanity by using a planner and making lists. This way, I feel in control.

In college, professors do not hold your hand. It’s the students’ responsibility to read the syllabus thoroughly and have our sh*t together. Had I read the syllabi before the first week of class, I probably wouldn’t have been as disoriented.

The late penalty is brutal at UW. You have to turn in most assignments online, so a late or missing assignment is in black and white. I heard that the chemistry department is ruthless, especially with lab reports so I extra-ensured to turn those in on time.

There was a student in Bio180 who didn’t know a reading quiz was due the first week of class and complained on Piazza (the class discussion forum). I don’t think anyone felt bad for them.

21. Free online textbooks

You always hear to not pay full price for college textbooks. What you don’t hear is that there is a place where you can find most of them and download for free.

22. See a therapist

College can get pretty tough. I used to think that feeling stressed and overwhelmed was normal and that therapy was only for those with severe mental illnesses. In reality, everyone has room to improve their mental health. I believe seeing a doctor for mental health is as important as seeing one for physical health.

Although society is making great process, the idea of seeing a therapist is still a bit taboo. I definitely did not feel comfortable enough to make an appointment until winter quarter (it’s free for a couple sessions at the counseling center). Ultimately, I forgot to go and could not muster the willpower to reschedule it.

The quarantine of spring quarter enabled me to finally address on my mental health issues. Therapy over zoom seemed really weird, but it turned out to be a very pleasant experience. Although it is nice to talk to friends and family, it is sometimes more helpful to receive professional advice and understand why my brain works in certain ways.

23. Professors are cool

I used to think professors were intimidating and radiated a no-BS-allowed energy.

In actuality, most of them are down to earth and most of them are very geeky/funny.

What surprised me the most from my process of cold-emailing professors for research opportunities was how much they are willing to help students. I could not fathom why they would take time out of their busy schedule to meet with a random student like myself. They actually just have the pure intention to see students to succeed.

Professors are also just very cool people and insightful to converse with.

24. The Freshman 15 sneaks up on you

Back in high school, I thought the Freshman 15 was a myth. Or, that it would never happen to me because I seemed to never gain weight. However, lifestyle choices can drastically change in college, especially if you move away from home.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither is the Freshman 15.

In retrospect, it was so obvious what led to my weight gain. I have a whole post on this topic but the main culprits were stress-eating, dorm food, midnight MEALS, partying and not exercising. However, at the time, I was just trying to survive and Have a Good Time, not worry about future consequences.

Conclusion

Sometimes I reflect back to my college freshman year at the University of Washington and my most immediate recollection is the academic stress. Although the pandemic cut my freshman year short, writing this post and looking through photos make me feel grateful for all the good and bad that made my first college year amazing.