Freshman gets past day one jitters
This is the first story in a weekly series chronicling a day in the life of unsung members of the CMU community.
It’s Monday morning and Grand Rapids freshman Christina Carpenter is walking wide-eyed to her first class of her college career.
She weaves her way toward the Health Professions Building through a steady stream of students, her eyes darting back and forth nervously from the ground, trying not to make eye contact too long at the ocean of strangers before her.
Carpenter had taken the time to locate the Health building before Monday, so she has little trouble tracking it down.
But getting past her first-day nerves is a different story.
“It’s just such a big step forward from high school,” she said. “Everyone here is a mature adult.”
Her first class of the day, Fundamentals of Injury Prevention, begins at noon. She slept in until 11 a.m.
Though she found the building and then her classroom with ease, despite its distance from the Towers, she still looked a little wary.
“Last night, I kept having weird dreams about going to the wrong building or the wrong classroom,” she said.
Carpenter found herself in a situation Monday not uncommon for incoming freshmen.
Northville sophomore Maggie Koet said problems she faced her freshman year developed from a lack of organization.
“I slipped up because I partied too much,” Koet said. “Keep up with academics and don’t let yourself fall behind.”
Carpenter found her classroom Monday without a glitch. Still, she drummed her fingers nervously while she waited for class to start.
“I felt a lot better once she (the professor) started class,” she said. “I wasn’t nervous anymore and I felt comfortable.”
Her first class of the day was over by 1 p.m., giving her a two and-a-half-hour break before her second class.
At 3:30 p.m., she ran off to American Government, finding her classroom as easily as she found her first.
She made conversation with the people sitting around her. But starting fresh, Carpenter said she has yet to make any new friends, other than her roommates.
“I’m scared without my friends,” she said. “It’s really hard because I don’t really know anybody and my roommates know a lot of people.”
Haslett junior Zach Norman said he also had problems finding new friends his freshman year.
“The hardest part about being a freshman was gathering the courage to just go with people — especially people that I didn’t know that well,” Norman said.
Carpenter’s roommate, Deanna Ortiz, a Howell freshman, isn’t too worried about Carpenter, however.
“She’s shy at first, but once you get to know her, she’s really nice and laid back,” Ortiz said.
Carpenter said she doesn’t have any specific game plan for utilizing her time or balancing her work load, but said she knows she doesn’t want to procrastinate.
She said she misses home mostly her friends, parents and her dog Mason, a Border collie.
But her mom calls her everyday, and she plans to make monthly trips back home to visit.
