Interesting Introductions

By Maggie Malone

The break was a little short, but isn’t it always? It’s hard trying to get back into the daily routine of eat, study, sleep. However, the beginning of each new semester gives us a chance for a fresh start.

For my part, I’ll begin the year with a story:

At first, I didn’t think that I would get along with the professor for my philosophy class. He was outspoken and snarky, and my slightly sleep deprived brain couldn’t wrap my mind around anything he was trying to say. I began to dread waking up for his class.

However, this professor wasn’t the best with names. So this morning, he brought us all bright lime green cards with our names on them to decorate. He would read out the name on the card, then hand it to its intended recipient, attempting to memorize their faces in the process. When the professor got to my name, he gasped. “MAGGIE MALONE?!” he gasped, “I love your name! It sounds just like a character in a book!” (That was the first time in a while that I had heard a grown man squeal.) After cheerfully prancing to my seat in the back of the room and handing me my name card, he asked me where I was from. Turns out, we’re from the same state! My professor and I geeked out about the most random Missouri things for a few minutes before class started again. I think I’m going to like this class after all. Oh, and I need to thank my parents for giving me such a rad name.

Finding a Friend

By Jaziah Masters

Most new college students are extremely anxious about one thing: making friends. This was especially true in my case. I was the only person from my high school to come to Baylor, so quite naturally I was extremely nervous about making new friends.

Fear not! I was able to meet a bunch of wonderful new people and making friends was not hard at all. Welcome Week was huge in this endeavor. I could go into a spiel about the wonders of that great opportunity, but that is a blog post for another day!

WelcomeWeekEven though I’m almost a year and a half removed from Welcome Week, it’s safe to say that potential friends are around every corner. Recently, I was sitting outside a classroom waiting for my Spanish class to begin. I looked up and I saw a girl walking toward me. She looked familiar so I waved, and she waved back. She sat next to me and we began to talk. Apparently she thought I looked familiar as well. It turns out neither one of us had known each other beforehand (which was pretty embarrassing I must admit). The conversation could have ended there, but before I knew it, we were holding an actual conversation.

Now I’m no small talk expert, but we really got along well. She told me about her struggles taking Korean, and I told her about my struggles in Spanish class. Eventually, we both had to get to class, but in that short amount of time, we really bonded! You’ll also be happy to know that whenever we see each other around campus, we can correctly identify each other!

This story reminds me of two things. One, making friends can be pretty easy, even natural, sometimes. And two, freshmen year is not the only time to make friends in college. Even looking back at my time in high school, some of the people I spent the most time with senior year, I didn’t even know freshmen year. You’re never too old to make friends, just be sure you recognize them after the fact. 😉

Back to the Grind

By Marisela Martin

Hi y’all!

Hope everyone had a great break! Not sure about y’all but I definitely needed the break from school to be home. Pretty sure I spent the entire break sleeping in and eating home cooked meals! You have no idea how much you will miss a home cooked meal until you go to college and eat in a dining hall!

Anyway, my Spring semester is going great so far. This semester I have the opportunity to take three communication classes and it’s great to finally be able to get to work on my major! My Tuesdays and Thursdays are definitely filled with the bulk of my classes, but part of going to college is learning how to manage time, right? In addition, because I have so many major related classes I find that I have a small amount of homework each night, but I do have a lot of major writing projects due at the end of the semester. Oh the life of a communication major!

On top of school, I have been involved in school wide activities. Just last night I attended the Multicultural Greek Council Style Show and it was so much fun to see all the multicultural sororities and fraternities gather together and display their individual uniqueness. I also attended the Baylor Men’s Basketball game on Wednesday and they won!

It’s so good to be back and I can’t wait to see what the semester has in store for me! Until next time, Sic ‘em!

Starting Strong

By Cody Frohman

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Friends, family, and professors have repeated this phrase to me numerous times over the past few years, and as I enter my fourth semester of college it is starting to sink in that this cliché really is true.

Planning used to be a big part of my life. I was the kid who wrote down every assignment in high school and strived to finish the assignments weeks early.  But somewhere between the end of my first semester of college, and the start of my second I stopped planning. I had a really easy course load and it seemed like the need to plan vanished.  I had so little going on I could easily keep up with everything without really planning. I found myself procrastinating on everything, barely making deadlines, and forgetting about scheduled quizzes. I got through the semester just fine so I continued along my third semester, taking 18 hours, and working 20+ hours a week. But it soon hit me that I needed to start planning or my grades would take a hit.

So I started planning again, writing out every assignment, every quiz, and every test. Now I’m entering my fourth semester and I am starting strong. I am organizing my days to ensure that I am being productive and efficient with my time.

One of the things I love about new semesters is the opportunity to start over. There are new classes, new experiences, and new opportunities. Along with a new start, comes the opportunity to start strong. The steps we take determine our direction, and if we take steps to start strong we will end strong. But if we start off the semester without a plan, we’re going to find ourselves at the end barely treading water.

My suggestion to you would be to start strong by planning. Make a plan for what you want this semester to look like. If you want a 4.0 GPA, then make a plan to study. If you want to stop procrastinating, plan your time to ensure that you are finishing tasks efficiently and productively. If you want to run the Bearathon, make a plan so you won’t end up attempting to run 13.1 miles on March 21st without taking a step before the race!

Take advantage of the new semester and plan your steps, it’ll save you a lot of pain in the end!