At my job at the yarn shop, I get to meet a lot of All Roads prospies. Almost every single one of them asks (with fear and trepidation in their eyes) about the workload in college. Coincidentally, everyone I know is more stressed than ever right now, not to mention finals are approaching, so this question is at the forefront of my mind.
For prospies worried about the transition from high school to college coursework, what I’ll say is that, for me, it felt relatively natural. Your first-year seminar is a big part of introducing you to college work. The seminar will get you used to college reading and discussions, in an environment with other first-years who are also doing this for the first time, and a professor who designed the class with this in mind. In addition, most of your first semester classes will be intro classes anyway, unless you’ve already taken a lot of APs. Intro classes are also majority first-years, and professors know this. You may have a short adjustment period of getting used to the readings, but it really will be okay.
The other thing about managing an Oberlin workload is that there are resources to help you! The speaking and writing center is one resource you should absolutely go to in your first semester. You can make an appointment online, spend half an hour with a writing associate, and leave with a much better grasp on whatever the assignment is and what you need to do for it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into the writing center with a jumbled mess of thoughts and no idea where to start and left with a full outline, actually excited to write an essay.
There is also help on campus for executive functioning and study skills. They can teach you more efficient methods of organizing your work and approaching assignments. My personal method for this is to sit down with every syllabus at the beginning of the semester and input all of my assignments and readings into one big spreadsheet. It’s tedious, but it puts everything in one place and gives me a visual of where I’m at with assignments. I’m including a link here to this semester’s spreadsheet, so you can get an idea of what I mean. Feel free to use this as a template!
If, after all of this, you do start to feel overwhelmed (and you will at times), office hours exist! That’s when you need to go and talk with your professors. They are generally very kind and understanding people who just want to help you learn. Obies are notoriously hard on themselves about everything, but I’m here to tell you that you are allowed to ask for help.
My biggest piece of advice is to be really aware of your time commitments in addition to class work. Everyone, including myself, has had one or more semesters of egregiously overcommitting and struggling academically as a result. It’s a canon event at this point, but if you can avoid it, you’ll save yourself a lot of stress. Learn from our mistakes, future Obies. Still get involved, but be intentional about your commitments.
To all the nervous prospies, you will be just fine. The other thing about college work is that it’s actually fun and interesting, because you’re finally taking classes you enjoy and want to be in. If anything, look forward to that!
