Freshmen View "First Day"

By Yerik Perez Serrano


I am writing a simple story about my first day of college ever simply due to the fact we all have a first day. We may all experience it differently, go to different classes, or do different things, but I write this in hopes that while you read, a smile on your face will form and it will bring you back to your first day of college.

It was the day before my first day of college and I felt I had conquered a huge hurdle. I had my bag packed with 30 lbs of school items that I would probably never use. I had printed out a map that I had put my own strange markings on. This map was my safety vest, for it’s how I would survive my first day. Along with those two dear possessions, I had also fought a two-headed hydra, known as the Alcohol Education and Financial Aid online courses, so that I could get to my classes. It was hard and lasted forever as I answered the same questions in thirty different renditions, but I slayed both of them and was granted entrance to the new found land of college. I went to sleep with my alarm ready to wake me up 3 hours before my first class.

I had shown up early to my classes, every single one of them. I didn’t show up twenty minutes before it began, but rather anywhere from 30-45 minutes early. My fear of going to the wrong class was of higher importance than looking like an idiot standing in front of a door for forty-five minutes. The good thing was that when I had shown up, there were other freshmen doing the freshman stumble and exchanging the same banter every single time.

“Hey.”

“Hello.”
“Is this the class for so and so?”
“Yes.”
“Phew, I made it.”

Navigation to these classes so I could experience this banter was another thing. I don’t know how I looked to other people when I was walking around with a map glued to my face, but I believe it was probably much more ridiculous than any tourist. I’d always try and deduce where I was but the three letter codes (that I believed were part of a secret language) would throw me off track and I’d become a deer in front of headlights. I had to go up to another college student and ask them where the building was. All they saw was a little kid with a wrinkled map shaking in his hand. The great part was that the experienced college students were able to point me to the building (which was right behind me).

The last thing to talk about is the classes themselves. I did not know what to expect when I entered the classes. Every single classroom I entered had some different layout that did not harbor the high school code of each room being an exact replica. I am taking these classes in rooms that range from a small broom closet type, where everyone is squeezed like sardines, to an auditorium type, where there are 200 other people staring at one man at the bottom.

My first day was pretty awkward as I tried to survive it, but when I look back at, I smile. It was fun to experience college when high school was always the same. I met people who were twice my age and were taking the same class as me. It felt as if I had walked 1000 miles since the campus was so big and I had no bike to make my way across. It felt like being in a small city because everyone seemed like the nice next door neighbor when you’d talk to them for advice or help. I can definitely say one thing; the first day of college was the intro to the rest of my life.