Huddled under black-and-gold umbrellas on the University of Iowa’s T. Anne Cleary Walkway, Faith Roland, Ieland Flanagan, and Grace Culbertson are feeling giddy.
They’d just met and talked with their first university professor, received and reviewed their first course syllabus, and made initial introductions with new classmates. As they chat Monday morning about first impressions, they can’t help but feel excited about the year ahead, as well as the years to follow.
“I’m so excited to finally be here on campus and to be meeting new people,” says Roland, a first-year student from Grinnell, Iowa. “Iowa City is a much more diverse place than Grinnell. It’s like a whole new start in life.”
Besides their first academic course, the three women also talked about dorm life, including tips for making friends quickly.
“I love my dorm so much,” says Culbertson, who is from Des Moines, Iowa. “Everyone is super nice and so good about introducing themselves. People leave their doors open so that people can just drop by and say hello.”
But despite these good vibes, Culbertson and her two friends also admit to feeling slightly uneasy. As they stand in the middle of the UI campus with hundreds of other students streaming around them on their way to or from class, they confess that some things still seemed daunting.
“In high school, I understood what the expectations were, but here at the UI, I’m not sure yet what the expectations will be,” says Flanagan. “I woke up this morning feeling a little bit nervous.”
Others also feel excitement about being on campus.
Seated together on a bench inside McLean Hall awaiting the start of a calculus class, first-year students Kuiqi Chen, Drake Wang, and Yingqi Wang say they’re sticking together, at least for the first class of the day. The three students from China say they’re still trying to figure out the location of buildings on campus, and that they’re happy they can support one another at the beginning of their UI adventure.
“The UI campus is really big and there are so many fantastic things to see and do,” says Chen, who wants to study business. “There is really no comparison with a campus in China. The number of activities and the balance between academics and social time is what we wanted to find; it’s why we decided to study in the U.S.”
Jake Mussehl, a second-year transfer student from Muscatine, Iowa, says he attended a community college near his home for a year to better prepare himself for university-level academic work and to give himself time to think about a major.
“The rain isn’t ruining my first day,” says Mussehl, a sports and recreation management major. “I’m excited to meet new people and to study hard. I want to be focused so that I can hopefully graduate in two-and-a-half years.”
Mussehl says that attending the UI has been a dream of his for years, in part because his parents took him to see UI basketball and football games when he was a child. Dressed in black and gold, Mussehl gives a “Go Hawks” cheer as he heads off to his next class.
Meanwhile, in the student commons of the Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences, third-year student Nicholas Moioffer, from Grayslake, Illinois, is already digging into the details of a course in thermodynamics.
“I’m trying to figure out how the professor is going to grade us,” he says. “I’m better at tests than homework, so I hope tests count more toward the final grade than homework.”
With two years at the UI under his belt, Moioffer says he no longer gets nervous at the start of a new academic year. He came back to Iowa City three weeks before the start of the fall semester so he could move into his apartment and hang out with friends.
“I definitely feel more confident than I did as a first-year student,” he says.
Since his first day on campus two years ago, Moioffer says he’s made many friends and learned a thing or two about time management and staying on top of coursework.
“It helps to do your homework during the week,” he says. “You can’t wait until the last minute.”
Moioffer’s final words of advice: “Be ready to work.”
