The Signpost Orientation Issue Monday August 26 2019.

AUBREE ECKHARDT | The Signpost

Welcome to the 2019-2020 school year…

The secret is out! Weber State is where you make your dreams happen! When I accepted the opportunity of a lifetime to lead this wonderful university, I knewwe had great students, faculty, staff, alumni, and partners. You, too, have chosen Weber State because it is a special place.

For more than 130 years, Weber State has worked to meet the needs of our community and region by providing access to a quality education and lifelonglearning opportunities. The core themes of access, learning, and community continue to guide our university.

As we enter this 2019-20 school year, we have so much to be thankful for and so much to share. Help us share more about the great people, places, and thingshappening at Weber State, and help us do it LOUDER and PROUDER.Since the spring commencement, many Weber State students have been following their dreams.

• Twenty-eight students, along with 10 faculty, community, and alumni, helped build a school in Fiji. 386 students overall participated in study abroad programs.

• A May 2019 graduate, Victoria “Toria” Snow, won a trip to the 14th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in June as a part of a bigger prize,the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival grand prize for costume design (a first for Weber State).

• Fifteen more graduates continued their education at the nation’s top graduate program for information security and management, Carnegie Mellon University:

six in summer fellowships and nine for master’s degrees.

• Weber State’s own, Nailah Mansa, was one of 10 students chosen from across the country to volunteer at this year’s 110th NAACP National Convention in July.

Whether the Weber State Wildcats are receiving the Big Sky Conference President’s Cup for a record fifth time, Dr. Yu Jane Yang is being awarded the “2019Outstanding Service Recognition Award” by the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy, or whether a Weber State-led survey on the effects of the mostrecent partial federal government shutdown is making national headlines, know that you are part of a great, Great, GREAT university that is recognized for itsexcellence.

Our physical campus continues to transform to better fulfill your dreams. We broke ground on our new Computer and Automotive Engineering Building atWSU Davis in May, have watched the demolition of the Science Lab, and are excited about the upgrades at Stewart Stadium as we celebrate the 100th anniversaryof football. More is on the way as construction commences this fall on the Outdoor Adventure Center and this spring on the Noorda Engineering Building.

Thank you for being a part of the Weber State family. Weber State would not have the success that it has without you as students, faculty, and staff. Together,we are committed to student success, and I thank you for renewing that commitment every day as you serve in your all-important roles. One thing’s for sure, it’sa great day to be a Wildcat! Wishing you all the best as we work together for a dream-fulfilled year.

Most Sincerely, Brad Mortensen President

8 | MyWeberMedia.com | August 26, 2019

LEAH HIGGINBOTHAM

Reporter

When I was a freshman, I thought I knew what college was going to throw at me. Unfortunately, no matter how prepared I thought I was, starting college was hard and I made plenty of mistakes.

While they were painful to think about at the time, as I begin my junior year I can look back and learn from them. Here are three mistakes I made my freshman year

AUBREE ECKHARDT | The Signpost

and how I learned to avoid them.

Mistake number one was not picking the classes and instructors that would work best for me.

In high school, I was assigned a teacher for my classes and that was who I got. If I was lucky there might be two and I could try to pick, but most of the time I had no say in who my instructors were. That’s just high school.

When I got to college, I assumed professors were pretty much interchangeable. After all, how different can one instructor’s class be from the next?

The answer is a lot. One teacher might base their whole class around tests, while others want lots of in-class participation and others want a paper every other week. There is nothing wrong with this. With so

many students, everyone has a learning preference. The problem arose for me because I'm an essay writer who’s bad at note-taking, and I was stuck in a class centered around a comprehensive end of semester exam.

How I avoid this issue is by planning my classes ahead of time and using Rate My Professors.

There are a number of different ways to set classes up to work for you, but I wasn’t taking advantage of them, so they couldn’t help me.

I waited until the end of my sophomore year to talk to an academic advisor, which was a big mistake. I had finally declared English as my major, so I talked to Dr. John Schwiebert. Talking to the right advisor helped me understand my graduation requirements and what classes would help me graduate on time.

Doing this, I was able to plan for fall semester early and had the opportunity to look into each professor on Rate My Professors in order to find out whose class I’d best fit into. I made and saved a plan on the registration tool on eWeber and woke up early on my registration day to ensure I’d get the classes that would suit me.

The second mistake I made freshman year was taking morning classes and not prioritizing my mental health.

I don’t know why I thought that taking an 8 a.m. Spanish 2010 class my freshman year was a good idea. At 8 a.m. I can barely comprehend English.

That was the first and only class I’ve ever failed. I didn't live close to campus as a freshman and I was taking the train from Bountiful to Weber every morning.

When I was in high school, I lived all of ten minutes from the school. I could roll out of bed at 7 a.m., get dressed and grab breakfast from the fridge before driving to school and still make it before the 7:30 a.m. bell.

As a college freshman, if I missed my 6:30 a.m. train, I missed my class because my little car couldn’t make the 45-minute drive to campus if it was raining, snowing or if the wind was too bad. So I had to wait an hour for the next train.

That was my undoing. Attendance, for the first time, was actually a part of the grade. I was also working a cashier job that kept me

out until 11 p.m. and I didn’t want to wake up at 5 a.m. every day.

I needed to acknowledge that having to get up early every day for class was more than I could handle. My freshman schedule was too much for me.

I would have to get up at 5 a.m., go to class and stay until 3 p.m., then go home and be at work at 5 p.m. and stay there until 11 p.m.

On weekends I was pulling eight-hour shifts and then doing homework, or hanging out with friends and failing to do homework. Something had to give, and my morning Spanish class fell to the wayside.

How I avoid this now is by acknowledging that I am human and balance school, work, and socialization accordingly.

As a freshman, I fell into the trap of “I did it in high school so I can do it now.” That sentiment was wrong on so many levels.

In reality, I was always one slip up away from a full-blown panic attack in high school because I was spreading myself way too thin. I barely made it in high school, and I couldn’t do it as a freshman and lived nearly an hour from school.

I didn’t have a good balance in my schedule as a freshman. I wanted to believe that I was the type of person who could handle an intense schedule like the one I had, but I was lying to myself. I needed to acknowledge that I’m human. I need time away from work and school or else my mental health ends up worse than I started.

In order to better balance my life, my schedule is set up much differently now. For one, I got a new job that has a set schedule and has weekends off. It’s a morning job where I’m off by 10 a.m., giving me time to work on homework during the day before heading to class in the evening. That way I can go to bed when I get home. I have time dedicated to seeing friends and family, and I don’t have to compromise my school work to do it. Working to build my schedule to suit my needs was far easier than trying to fit into a schedule that made me miserable and fail classes.

The third mistake I made freshman year was being unwilling to take a W.

When I took Math 1050 the first time, I barely passed. And by barely passed, what I really mean is I barely didn’t fail. I managed to scrape by with a D- at the end of the se-

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mester, which really hurt my GPA.

The reason I scored so low in that class was that I was unwilling to drop it and take a withdraw, or “W.” I was failing or barely scraping by for most of the semester, but I was unwilling to quit and cut my losses. I had convinced myself that a W looked worse than an F, which really isn’t true.

Once I figured out that taking a W wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, I started to use it to my advantage. The problem then became that I didn’t know all the risks, and I narrowly avoided losing my scholarship from not having enough credits in the semester.

How I avoid this now is by knowing the benefits and risks of taking a W.

The truth is that there are risks and rewards for everything, and that’s true of withdrawing from classes midway through the semester.

Last year I withdrew from a marketing class once I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to put in the amount of effort necessary to pass the class. I enrolled in a second block class instead and passed that one with an A.

This is how taking a W can be beneficial. I swapped out one class for another, and instead of my GPA taking a hit, I was able

AUBREE ECKHARDT | The Signpost

to raise it.

I tried to do the same thing again this past summer, and I thought it would work the same, but there was a catch. I was a part-time student, which has different parameters than taking a full-time course load.

At full-time, whether a student is taking 12 credits or 18 credits, they all cost the same, which meant I could enroll and then withdraw from a class and not owe any more money. As a part-time student, withdrawing late in the term meant that not only would I have to pay for my new class, but that I was at risk of losing my scholarship. I wound up having to go full time for the summer in order to keep it.

I’m certain I’ve made more mistakes than just these three. College is an opportunity to learn and grow, which is often stressful and difficult. Now that I understand how to learn from my mistakes, I know my limits. I know when to step up or when to quit, and I know how I work best. Those lessons have made me successful, and learning about myself will help me throughout my life.

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