We were so baby in a way in like high school like we were taught what time we
went to class, we were taught what time we got to school.
But however, once you get to college,
you're pretty much on your own in terms of responsibility.
So I was saying, a misconception I had is that they would help you through.
And in an academic standpoint, that is true, but
everything else you have to get it on your own and that is what you really want.
>> Definitely it is true, but glove kind of come off and
it is up to you to make everything happen once you get to college.
[MUSIC]
So Bridget and Courtney, did you find it difficult?
I know Temple is a very large school.
Holy Family is a smaller school, but
then community is very large in comparison to Holy Family.
Did you find it difficult to socialize with other students or
take part in student organizations or to just generally get involved on campus?
>> So you're right, Temple is huge.
I went to Abington Friends School for high school events.
I graduated with 62 other students.
So, I came from a very small school and went to a very big school.
But I would say that once I got in Temple, I didn't feel as big.
I joined a living learning community for my first year and
it's pretty much your house with who have similar interests as you.
So I was the leadership with the learning community, so
I was with people who value leadership as part of the learning experience.
And so, my roommate was part of it.
Everybody in my hallway.
So a week before to started,
we hang out like we moved in on campus before everybody else did.
We had a peer mentor which was an older college student that answered all of our
freshman questions and we had an advisor who was a director of leadership, and
development, and still is at Temple.
And so I kind of started with the foundation before school even started,
which I would definitely recommend to anybody.
There's various Living Learning Communities,
just research them for your school.
Another thing is join a lot of Lisserves.
I know at Temple, there's welcome week where at least two days out of the week,
all of the student organizations are outside telling you about what they do,
because they want you to join their organization.
So even though I know I didn't have time or
the energy to join 50 organizations, I still made sure to give them my email.
So I knew what they were doing at any given week, at any given day which really
helped, because, yeah, I'm a poet, but I had to put school first.
So I did poetry on my own, but
I still love going to the poetry slams that Temple had.
I wasn't part of all the African organizations, but
I still knew what they had.
So if they had a big event that, I wanted to be part of.
I could just pull-up my email, search the organizations name and
know when and where it would take place.
This kind of gave me some guidance.
Because in a big institution,
everything happening at the same time is really good for
me to have an organized way of knowing what's available and planning my time too.
Because sometimes, they would tell you things a week in advance,
a month in advance.
And so definitely joining a Listserve, joining a Living Learning Community and
reaching out to older students and faculty could help you so much.
>> Courtney.
>> When I went to Holy Family, I did find it a little difficult to
socialize with other students, because it was a Catholic college and
I'm not Catholic and it was not very diverse as well.
So in my door, it was about four other African Americans
in my entire door and coming from school.
I was like, you see something like that, but
I didn't take it as a bad thing is as good as all a new experience.