Freshmen Week New

Posted by Breyona Colley at Sunday, August 28, 2011 12:48:34 AM EDT

Freshmen week was literally not what I had expected at all. I expected to come to campus meet a bunch of people and have nothing to do all day except sit in orientations and tutorials but it was not nothing like that. I imagined there would be very few activities for us to take part in or time for us to really get to know one another. I assumed we would meet professors and advisors and other students along the way but I never even could have came to the conclusion of what freshmen week honestly was. My freshmen week was an experience that I will never be able to forget. Within two days of being here I am sure that I have have met four friends that I will be friends with and close to long after my days at Howard. We had met each other Monday night at Fur and have been inseperable ever since. Every time we meet someone knew and we go through that normal questioning what's your name? Where are you from? What's your major? Where do you stay? and many other questions that lead into other conversations, we are always replied with, "So did you guys know each other before coming to school? You seem like you have known each other a long time." But we always simply reply, no we just met each other, with a smile on our faces. Freshmen week I was honestly scared of. I was coming from out of state, just like many other students, but I just had this mindset of not knowing anyone and scared of having to start all over with making friends and being in a city where I know absolutely no one and the closest person I do know, is two hours away. I had all these emotions and thoughts running through my head and coming to Howard changed all of those perceptions. Freshmen week was a time where we had no worries and was a time to get to know our classmates and gain friendships that can and will stick with us for the rest of our lives. As for Freshmen Seminar I don't know what to expect. Going to orientation and walking around the campus and talking to upper class-men about certain classes you really do hear the opinion of this class being completely pointless. But when sitting in the class it seems that it is going to challenge me intellectually and make me think about things in a way I never thought of. As well as to challenge things I know and see how much about them I really do know. This class seems like it is going to help me to obtain information a different way and make me look at things in life a new way and give certain things a brand new meaning, one that without this class I would have never received. My dad is very big on black history and the history of our people, but with me being Puerto Rican as well he looks at both sides of our ancestry and learns all of the things he can. He is very interested in both sides of his and my heritage, and with that it keeps me in the loop and interested. So with that I have always had a great interest in my history and knowing where I come from and the history of my people. So I think that this class will help to spike this interest that I have and only to increase it. I look forward to what this class brings and the thought process it will provoke. The goals I hope to achieve in life are very simple. 1.) I want to be great at whatever I do. 2.) I want to understand every aspect of life, I want to be able to connect with whatever my patients are going through and be able to help. and 3.) No matter what I do with my life I want to know where I came from, where I am going and have a plan set forth on how to get there. I hope that this class can bring all of my goals to life or at least help to achieve them. I now that I want to be a doctor and I know that I love the human mind and I know that people from all walks of life think differently and conceptualize things in a different manner and I want to be able to connect no matter what walk of life people are from. I have very high expectations for this class and I can only anticipate it with high hopes and an open mind and positive outlook when walking into the class. As for the previous week being my first week of classes, I enjoyed it. It was what I originally thought it to be, I assumed I would walk into class sit down and begin to take notes on subjects some I am familiar and others that are brand new to me, but either way I would have an open mind to what is being said and try and grasp the material. I can say I assumed I would struggle with math as I did all through high school and I was right about that as well. I was also on the right track for assuming that this class would challenge me intellectually. The first, or one of the first assignments, was to research one of the names on the list given and create a name that exemplifies them and something they have accomplished. I came up with the name Locke's Seldom Traveled Rhodes for our group name because after reading his biography over some of the other's I realized that there was something that really interested me. The name itself was constructed obviously of his name but the Rhodes seldom traveled was talking about his mindset and the way that he thought of things about this world that many do not even understand, specifically talking about his three idealism's of value and valuation, cultural pluralism, and race relations. He believed that each culture group has its own identity and it is entitled to protect and promote it. In the particular context of America, the claim to cultural identity need not conflict with the claim to American citizenship. And with me being born and raised in Puerto Rico I am very proud of that heritage as well as my African American side. So it was interesting and touching for me to read that he believed that no matter where you come from you shall always have that identity of where you are from and you should always proudly flaunt and never forget it and that does not conflict with the fact that you are also proud to be an American as well. The word "roads" was spelled the way it was because of him being a Rhodes scholar and to me that was a key piece as to of why he continued to look into the things he did and that's why I felt it to be important in implementing it into the title or name of the group. My expectations for Howard are high and I can only say they will have been, will be or won't be met by experiencing life to the fullest and enjoy the time spent here and I am looking forward to every minute of it. :) Brey

Gladys Reflection

I am Gladys Creppy-Hetherington and i am also a freshman at Howard University. I am undecided at the moment but i do feel that i may switch to majoring in broadcast journalism. I came to Howard because my entire family went to Howard for college so i really didn't have much of a choice. I had very big expectations for what college would be like but after my first week at Howard, my view has completely changed.
My first week at Howard Univesity was different then what i expected. I kind of expected things to be more like what you saw in movies. Instead, Howard makes me feel like i am just in another big high school. Nothing really feels different.
This maybe because i am not staying on campus and therefore am not getting the full college expirience. I still have my parents watching over me and waking me up in the morning. Things just don't seem different.
One thing that did shock me however, is the fact that teachers don't always come to class. I have yet to see my English teacher and we haven't even gotten far into the school year yet. I think it is horrible that my parents pay all that money for me to just sit in class for an hour, hoping my teacher will come to class. I really hope this isn't going to go on for the rest of the year.
The eathquake wasn't something new for me either. I had already expirienced them and didn't really understand why people were so hyped up about it. I am really glad nothing horrible happened and that no one got hurt.
As for freshman, i hope the class helps me learn more about the history of Howard University and also help me better appreciate my new college. I expect this class to also help me learn more and better appreciate my African heritage.
I am looking forward to the lecture named "Learning Wisdom and The African World Expirience." I believe that if people learn and better understand what our people have gone through, they would better respect the themselves and what our ancestors went through.
Hopefully things get better later on throughout the year. I heard homecoming is suppose to be amazing. Other than that, my first week in college was a bit of a let down. I guess you can't always believe what you see in movies.

First Experiences/Thoughts at the Mecca

I am Khalil Boggs, from Madison Wisconsin. I am a biology major (undecided minor) on the pre-med track. This first week has been very interesting. It has given me a good taste as to what college will be like for the rest of the semester and the upcoming years. Hopefully there will be less earthquakes and hurricanes in the upcoming years. Howard has been everything I expected and more. Well-educated African Americans all committed to extending their knowledge in certain fields. Although I noticed college is very different that high school. In my classes I noticed how unlike high school, during lectures and classes, information is not repeated as often or at all for that matter. The professor keeps going with the lecture unless it’s a key statement he/she feels you should know. However, my note taking skills are perfect for this because I only right down key statements and memorize the minor things to copy down later. Another difference I noticed is college really expands upon the concept of “you’re an adult now”. It is up to us whether we show up to class or do well in a class. It is up to us how we use those 1-4 hours before our next class.

Although we are adults now, and everything we do from here on out is on us, I have also noticed that people’s families still call and talk to them. It is good to know that even though we are away that we still have that support system back home that we can call when we need them. That support will help me get through these next four years, and help keep me focused on my goals and aspirations in life. I feel that freshman seminar will help me develop my leadership skills and sense of service. I have always been a leader and not a follower but I have not always been the kind of person to jump at service opportunities. Freshman Seminar could possibly help me with this. To be 100% honest, at first glance and during the first lecture I felt that Freshman Seminar would be a useless class that just fills another slot in my schedule. However, after deeper analysis and rereading the syllabus I see that freshman Seminar tries to help develop certain skills and qualities with in us so that we will be better equipped to stay on track and get through these next 4 years and possibly more. I realize that if I do not keep an open mind about the class I will not take much from it. However, it does not hurt that I continue to hear bad reviews from people who have taken it in past years, but I will try almost anything once.

I am looking forward to the African Burial ground trip in October. I feel like it would be an amazing sight to see and a great experience for me to have. As for the lectures, I think that I will take the most from is the Research and Methodology lecture. You can never have to much knowledge about research. I also am looking forward to the Abandonment and Dismemberment lecture. I am interested in knowing what people went through when torn from their homelands and beliefs. This should be a good semester and I am looking forward to freshman seminar.

Steeve's reflection

My name is Steeve B. Pierre-Louis and my first week of Howard completely changed my view of what college would be like. I initially thought that I would simply get an education and have nothing to do with my free time here but that turned out to be just the opposite. Freshman week turned out to be the longest and busiest week of my life thus far. From orientation workshops to the pal pack activities, I was always on the move. I also seemed to have really caught on to the whole networking thing that students usually describe HU as being big at. In just a week and a half, I've had to remember dozens of names and faces and it continues to this day (although feels like its been months, I have only been here 2 weeks).

Somewhere in that first week, we were told that we had to take a class called "freshman seminar" for 1 credit and it was a mandatory class for COAS students to graduate. I honestly thought it was nonsense. It seemed crazy to have us required to take an entire class outside of the "real" general requirements and outside of our majors in order to learn study skills and listen to random lectures. And as more upperclassmen told me more about the class, I lost all hope that it would be anything useful.

But just like my view of how College life would be drastically changed, so did my view of freshman seminar. The class was intended to help us in a way that may be annoying but also necessary. Not everyone learned the same things in high school, and even if s/he did, there is always room for improvement. This class, I hope, will teach me about the core values of Howard University and well prepare me for university life. I also hope that the lectures in this class will be interesting and understandable. Even if the class is only (almost) an hour long, quality will still be my top priority. I specifically hope that the Research and Methodology: Inscription as Liberating Practice lecture will serve me well for my future endeavors.