girls like girls (and studying)

Briana | 19 | Bi | Women & Gender Studies Major, Italian Minor | VU 2020

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omgggg I forgot about this blog! if anyone who follows this account is still here, hey lol. I am now 22 years old, a lesbian, I graduated a year ago and next month will be starting my position as an admissions counselor at my alma mater. life is very different but I used to have fun on here! hope yall are thriving in adulthood as well!

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Happy summer break! Also, happy Juneteenth!

If any of my posts over the years have helped you out, especially if you happen to be white, feel free to show your support by dropping a couple dollars in my venmo (@brianagrimes7) or cashapp ($brianagrimes7). Being an ally to black people and queer people is great, but fiscal support is better!

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Before I start this post, I want to say that everyone’s orientation is different! I’ve seen that a lot of schools have orientation over the summer, weeks before classes start. My school, I guess because only a few of us are from here and the majority of students are out of the state/country, we had orientation week starting on move-in day, the same week classes started. That’s why I will be discussing move-in day and the first day of classes here, though yours might be a completely separate experience. Let’s get started!

Move-In Day

Dress for a lot physical activity. You are going to be lugging your shit up and down stairs (elevators get full, if you even have them) all day, walking back and forth to your car, and once you get everything in your room, you will have to unpack and loft your bed, etc. You are going to be sweaty and exhausted by the time it’s all over. I wanted to still be cute so I wore spandex, my Vandy t-shirt and hat, and a full face of makeup lol. I know you might want to make a good first impression on your roommate and new classmates, but everyone will be wearing what looks like workout clothes. Don’t wear jeans or a dress or something. It’s August, it’s hot, you’ll regret it.

Be patient. Oh my god, I swear 90% of the memories I have of move-in day are just me waiting. Waiting in the car for the line to move towards the dorms, waiting in line to get my key, waiting for a dolly to free up, waiting to get inside the elevator, waiting for the stairs to clear up. It’s so boring, especially when you’re so excited to just finally be there. Be prepared to wait and try to appreciate your last few moments before college ruins your life (just kidding!).

Brace yourself for something to go wrong. No matter how organized your school is, chaos is inevitable on move-in day. You will have planned according to a schedule they gave you, and something will not go the way it’s supposed to. Thousands of freshmen who don’t know anything all in the same place at once is a recipe for disaster. Just don’t stress about it cause it will all work itself out. Honestly, that’s a philosophy to live by for your entire college career, not just move-in day.

Orientation Week

I can’t even explain how busy you’ll be. Starting from the first floor meeting we had on move-in day, the entire next seven days were packed full of activities and meetings and ceremonies. I still have my freshmen guide with the itenerary of all the things we had to do, and it was pages long. Everyday we would wake up at like 8, and have things to do until after midnight. I was so busy, I didn’t even have time to be on my phone, and I love social media. You will be so tired, and it will get old really quick. I don’t really have any advice, but through the exhaustion, remember to try and appreciate this chaotic time and stay in the moment. You’ll never again experience the freshness and excitement of your first week at college, soon you’ll get used to it all and you’ll wish for that feeling back.

You don’t have to attend everything. Like I said, you will be exhausted. You won’t want to wake up at 6 am for the Freshman Sunrise (i did and i regretted it), or to take the class picture where you have to stand still for an hour and you can’t even see yourself in the photo (again, i should’ve slept in). You might feel obligated to go to everything, but if you just need a break, then take that break. Orientation is overwhelming. 

Don’t freak out if you miss a required meeting. We had lots of events that were marked required. It’s inevitable that people miss these, due to sleeping through an alarm, or reading the time wrong, or getting lost on campus since you don’t know where everything is. Lots of the time, they only mark it as required to scare people into going when there’s no real consequence if you don’t. Even if there is a consequence, you won’t get into any major trouble the first week. You’re freshmen, they understand. Do try to make it to them, though. The best way to do this is to find friends or other people who are in that same section and go together.

Don’t stress about making friends. It is quite literally impossible to not make friends during orientation week. You will have to attend so many things with the same group(s) of people that you’ll bond over that alone. You don’t even have to try, so if you’re not a social person, don’t worry. As long as you don’t stay silent in a corner, you’ll have plenty of people to hang out with. 

Don’t stress about keeping the friends you do make. You will meet a million people, and have a million new numbers in your phone. You will have a hard time matching everyone’s names to their faces. People form connections really quickly, that’s just human nature, but this is especially heightened in university when everyone is away from home and no one knows anyone. Don’t feel like you have to stay attached to the same five people you became best friends with after two days for fear of not finding anyone else to be close to. Lots of people meet their real friends at the beginning of the year, but most people don’t. All of the pictures and videos I have from my entire first semester are with and of people I don’t even speak to anymore, people who, frankly, I can hardly stand to look at now. During orientation, you’ll gravitate towards anyone, but you’ll soon realize you don’t know them at all and they might turn out to be shitty people. I met all the friends I have now second semester through the LGBT group on campus, and they’re great. Point is, don’t feel too attached to your orientation buddies. You will find your people, even if it takes a while.

First Day of Classes

Find the buildings where your classes are held beforehand. Yes, I mean physically walk to them and find the exact classroom, don’t just use Google Maps to make sure you can get there in ten minutes. I knew the names of all the buildings and their general location, but then I found out some buildings are attached to each other and numbered in a strange order, then you finally find the right building but can’t find the right floor and hallway. I was late to all of my classes the first day. University buildings are so confusing. You will have trouble, I promise you. Do yourself a favor and figure out how to get to all of your classrooms sometime earlier in the week. You will feel great about not being that embarrassing freshmen asking the upperclassmen for directions (who are happy to help, but will laugh at you just a little bit).

Introduce yourself to the professor before or after class. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want, but it can’t hurt. Just shake their hand and make sure they can match your face to the name. Doing this the first day makes it easier to establish contact with them later in the semester, which you’ll probably have to do. Don’t worry, you’ll see lots of the other students in your lecture doing this, too. Just hop on in line.

Double check to make sure you don’t have any assignments due/papers to bring. This is unlikely cause you don’t have summer work in college (at least to my knowledge) and it’s never happened to me, but I had friends whose professors had assigned them work for the the first day of class. This is really ugly, I know, but just check your email and Blackboard to make sure there’s nothing to do. 

This is longer than I anticipated, so thanks if you read it all! I hope this helps someone out. Orientation is a chaotic mess but so so fun, cause it’s the only time you’ll ever be able to experience the fun of college without the stress of the work. Up next is advice on living with a roommate (and boy, do I have advice for that). Previous posts:

Application Process

Choosing/Changing Majors

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Going from living at home with your family to living at school with a stranger is a major major change. I had a very negative roommate experience my freshman year (which I will be making a post about all on its own) and I don’t want any of you to live that so here we go!

DON’T ROOM WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND. Obviously, you can take this idea with a grain of salt, but this is advice that’s been passed down to me by many people and I agree with it. If you happen to be going to the same school as your best friend from high school, or your cousin, or someone you’re close to, I recommend against rooming with them. You’re going to college to meet new people and have new experiences; you don’t want to spend your time around the same people you have your whole life. Also, living with someone brings out a different side of them. They might have quirks you hate. Spending so much time with someone can make you sick of each other. You don’t want to enter college besties and leave it enemies, so just be careful. I love my best friends, but I can’t imagine living with them full time because we’re so different!

It doesn’t really matter how you find your roommate. Whether you use your school’s facebook page like I did, or choose to go random like many of my friends, it doesn’t matter. Not meeting your roommate until you move in doesn’t put you at a disadvantage. My roommate messaged me on facebook and we talked all summer before move in and didn’t even survive the year. Now that I think about it, all the worst roommate nightmares I’ve heard of were with people who met each other beforehand, and all the people I know who went random were fine. You truly don’t know someone until you live with them; just because you get along great while messaging doesn’t mean you’ll be that way when you’re together almost 24/7. If the deadline for housing is nearing and everyone around you is already paired up, stop stressing and go random. It’s a tossup either way.

Accept that you might not be best friends, or even friends, with your roommate. Even if it starts out that way. Again, you don’t really get to know someone as a roommate until you live with them. I went from loving my roommate to not even speaking to her by the time she moved out. You might think the little differences you have don’t matter, but they do. It’s fine though, because you don’t need to be friends with your roommate. You just need to respect each other and get along. It won’t be awkward or uncomfortable if you don’t talk all the time and share hair products. You’ll have plenty of friends you don’t share a room with.

Take the roommate agreement seriously. At the beginning of the year, you might just fly through it like it’s a joke, because of course you won’t have any problems! This is untrue. The tiniest thing over time can accumulate in passive aggressive behavior and blow up into a huge conflict. Go over everything and talk about it in detail. Print it out and keep it on hand in case of conflict. Change it if needed. Don’t be afraid of seeming like an overbearing, annoying person because you don’t want your roommate to have the light on after midnight. Be honest and open at the beginning or else it’ll be six months later and way harder to bring it up. Determine who will clean what and when. Determine what is okay to share and what isn’t. Especially determine anything involving other people and your room, which brings me to my next point.

DON’T BRING PEOPLE BACK TO THE ROOM WITHOUT ASKING. EVER. This was the thing that ruined me and my roommate. She constantly let guys sleep over without asking me, which was extremely uncomfortable. If one of you wants to bring friends back all the time but the other doesn’t, come to some type of compromise and put it in the roommate agreement. If one of you has a significant other who wants to sleep over, talk about it in length and put it in the roommate agreement. Your room is exactly that; your room. If you want that to be a space for just you and your roommate, the one place on campus you can escape from everyone, that is totally fine. Make sure your roommate knows that. Even if it’s in the agreement that you can bring people over without asking, ASK ANYWAY. It’s common courtesy and respect. A heads up text goes a long way.

Communication is key, but escalate if needed. At some point, you’re gonna have some sort of issue, whether it’s big or small, you have to talk about it. If you don’t, it’ll just fester and get worse until you’re pissed at your roommate for something they don’t even know they did. It might seem uncomfortable, but it’s a lot better to squash it immediately than having a full-on fight a few weeks later. If you have a serious issue that’s making it hard to live with your roommate and you’ve talked to them about it and they haven’t fixed it, talk to your RA. They’re there for a reason and you can’t always handle things on your own. When I got to the breaking point with my roommate, I went to my RA. When my RA did nothing, I went to the area coordinator. When they did nothing, I went to the director of housing. You do not have to put up bullshit when you’re paying to live somewhere. You have just as much right to the room as your roommate, so if that’s being compromised, don’t stop until you can find someone to help.

Most people live with a roommate at some point in their life, it’s almost like a rite of passage. It could turn out awful, but it could also turn out to be a really awesome time. I hope for you all that the latter is true! Next post scheduled is advice on college classes and schoolwork, another thing I haven’t had the best of time in. Yay!

Check out my previous advice posts on:

Application Process

Choosing/Changing Majors

Orientation Week

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University can be extremely hard on your mental health, especially if you already struggled with mental illness beforehand. Like I’ve shared before, my depression and anxiety hit an all-time high? low? I don’t know which to call it but it got to the point I didn’t think I was going to make it. I did make it, however, and here are the things I hope will help you avoid going through what I did. Of course, I’m not a professional and I can’t speak for everyone, so I want to emphasize that these are things that I personally struggled with and that this is advice I would have given to myself in these circumstances.

Incorporate organization into your life. If you’re already an organized person, keep with it. College is a ton of work and you’ll have to keep track of a lot of things. I don’t know about you, but personally, when I know I have a lot of tasks to finish but I can’t remember how many or when they’re due and everything is just on my desk in a messy pile, I get very overwhelmed to the point of feeling suffocated, then I shut down and do nothing. Have a planner, bullet journal, or app of some sort to keep track of all your assignments. Plan when you’re going to work on them. Break assignments down into smaller tasks to make them seem less intimidating. PAY ATTENTION TO DUE DATES. It can be very easy to get things confused and lose track of it all; you want to prevent this from happening.

Drill it into your mind that in college, NO ONE cares what you do. This is mainly addressing the social anxiety side of things, which I struggle with pretty badly. When I first arrived at university, I was excited that no one knew who I was; it was a completely fresh start. It only took a couple of weeks before I felt that everyone had formed some type of negative opinion about me. It got to the point where I felt so self conscious on the way to class that I wasn’t even able to walk correctly without consciously thinking “okay, right foot, left foot”. Keep in mind that on a college campus, there’s thousands of people, and none of them are paying attention to you. No one cares what you eat, what you wear, or if you trip. Take comfort in the fact that you’ll probably never see these people more than once anyway. Everyone is just there to get a degree and do their own thing; as long as you’re a nice person, do what you want and try not to worry about what other people think of you.

Find a support system. University can be very lonely if you don’t have anyone to talk to, or if the only people around you are people who don’t understand what you’re going through and offer you unwarranted neurotypical advice like “drink more water” and “just think positive”. It really helps to have someone there who you can vent to about your problems and who can validate your experiences. All of my friends struggle with mental illness in some way like I do, so we can all understand each other and talk to each other about these things. Whether it’s your friends, your parents, or even people on the internet, having someone there to support you can make it feel like you aren’t carrying the load all alone, because you are never alone, even when you feel like you are. (Of course, I do recommend seeking professional help for the long run and the bigger, more serious issues, this is just for your everyday, more general things)

Don’t push yourself too hard. When you get to university, you may think of it as a continuation of high school in the sense of having to do a lot of things to distinguish yourself from others or to feel accomplished. You might want to join every club, take every class you can, make plans every night, and that is not a great idea. Only participate in extra-curriculars you actually have an interest in and genuinely enjoy; otherwise, you’re just wasting your time. I very highly recommend against taking the maximum number of credit hours you’re allowed to take, especially as a first-year, unless for some reason you absolutely have to. At Vandy, the limit is 18 hours/6 classes, and that’s a lot. If you find that you have made too many commitments, you don’t have to stick with them just because. The whole idea of “never be a quitter, always finish what you started” can be very detrimental to your mental health. If you push yourself too hard, you could end up with a lot of anxiety that could come to a head in a breakdown which is never good. Drop a class or a club if you just don’t have the time or energy to continue it anymore. You’re not a quitter; you’re taking care of yourself, which is the most important thing you could ever do. 

Sometimes you just need a break. Don’t be afraid to take a mental health day every once in a while. If you were physically sick with the flu or a migraine, you wouldn’t go to class, so why would you go to class if you’re a having a really bad depression episode or anxiety day? When your mental illness is flaring up, you’re not going to be productive anyway, so it’s not going to benefit you to force yourself to go to class. In my experience, and many of my friends experiences, professors can be understanding if you have some personal things going on. Just try to be honest with them, if you can, instead of just going AWOL with no explanation. When you have so much going on in addition to trying to keep your brain in check, bad days are inevitable. It’ll benefit you more to just ride it out and give yourself the time to recuperate than it would be to try to ignore and push through it, because then it’ll just come back ten times harder. Somedays you wake up and just can’t get out of bed. Take the day to focus on yourself so you can come through it better than before.

Please seek help when you need it, as soon as you need it. The mental health aspect of college is often avoided in the media as a topic of conversation. Vanderbilt proudly touts it’s second year winning the title of “Happiest Students in the Nation”, which I and a lot of my fellow classmates think is bullshit, because it is. No one is happy all the time, and you can’t measure happiness. It’s dangerous to advertise this because it could deter a student struggling with depression to seek the help they need as they believe that no one else is going through the same thing and there is no one to help them. I can promise you that whatever you’re going through, there are a lot of other people going through it, too. University is unbelievably stressful and can do a number on even those who have previously never had a problem with their mental health. If you start to feel overwhelmed, I encourage you to seek out counseling or whatever type of resources your school has available to you. Even just talking to someone once can help you a lot. If you already see a therapist/psychiatrist, try to keep seeing them when you start school, and if you’re moving away to school, try to find someone new before you get there. I thought about going to the PCC for a long time, and people told me that I should, but I just kept putting it off until I reached an extreme low. I like to think that I never would have had to hit that low if I had sought out help as soon as I knew I needed it. It can be nerve-wracking, so try to find a friend who will go with you, or call on the phone first before going in person. There’s a lot going on in university, but your health always comes first, no question. You won’t be able to succeed academically in the long run if you’re not your best self.

Understand that university is not the end-all, be-all. One of the main symptoms of anxiety is catastrophic thinking; you always assume the worst is going to happen, and the smallest things feel apocalyptic in nature. During my entire second semester, when I was on academic probation with really low grades in my classes, it constantly felt like my world was ending. I mean I spent every second of every day worrying about flunking out of school, and I genuinely thought I was going to die. A strategy I’ve learned in therapy is to tackle these thoughts; my therapist would ask, “okay, so if you do fail this test, what is going to happen? if you do fail out of class, what is going to happen? are you going to get hurt? are you going to die?” and of course, the answer was no. It helped me a lot to realize that even if I did fail all my classes and fail out of school, what was the worst that could happen? I wouldn’t die, my life wouldn’t be over, I was going to be fine. Of course, getting kicked out of uni would suck, but ultimately, I would survive. Plenty of people leave uni or never go to uni, and they ended up okay. Since anxiety always brings up the worst case scenario, which to a uni student would be failing out of school, address that scenario and realize it’s not the end of everything. And once you realize that, and then realize that the worse case scenario is extremely unlikely, every other possibility suddenly seems less daunting. It takes a lot to get kicked out of school; one failing grade, even three semesters of probation won’t get you removed (at least not here). If you get a bad grade on an exam, or even fail a class, you don’t have to automatically feel like your life is over. If your mental health causes you long-term struggles with school, your uni will work with you; see if you can take an approved underload (which is a number of credit hours less than the required minimum) or take a leave of absence. Neither of these things mean you’re a failure. Some people just have a different path than others. Maybe you’ll realize that university just wasn’t for you, and that is okay. 

Mental health is a much bigger issue in university than it seems. Yes, your grades are important, but your well-being is infinitely more so. Please always remember to take care of yourself, keep things in perspective, and seek help when you need it. If you need advice or someone to lend an ear, my inbox is always open. 

This was the last post idea I had lined up for this series, so if you have any topics you would like to see me give advice on, please please let me know! I did think about making a post of all my most embarrassing freshman year moments which I think could be hilarious, so I might do that. In the meantime, check out my previous university advice series posts if you haven’t already!

Application Process

Choosing/Changing Majors

Orientation Week/Move-In/First Day of Classes

Roommate Living

Classes and Schoolwork

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Welcome to the next post in my university advice series! I’m gonna give you some tips on choosing your college major, cause I have truly been through it:

Think about how/what you did in high school before you choose your major. By this I mean what classes did you do well in? Which ones did you actually enjoy? What clubs did you participate in? If you’re planning on being a math major but the only C’s on your entire transcript are in math classes, that’s not a good idea (@myself). If you enjoyed your government classes and debate club, consider something like poli sci. Going to college doesn’t mean you’re an entirely different person; you’re going to enjoy the same things and be bad at the same things. Take this into consideration when choosing your major.

Don’t be afraid to go in undecided. So many of my classmates in high school didn’t know what they wanted to do before going to school. Then I got to uni and no one knew what they wanted to do there either. Going in undecided is honestly way better than declaring a major, doing it for a year, deciding you hate it, and then having a year’s worth of useless credits (again, @myself). Go in, take some general requirements, take a couple electives in things you find interesting, and you’ll eventually figure out what you want to major in. Don’t stress about it too much. I promise there will be hundreds of other students who are undecided, too.

DON’T CHOOSE YOUR MAJOR BASED ON WHAT YOU THINK WILL MAKE MONEY OR WHAT YOUR PARENTS WANT YOU TO DO. Everyone says this, and I heard it a million times before I went to school, yet I still ignored this advice. Story time: at the beginning of high school, I was planning on going to a school where I could major in songwriting. My parents made it clear that that wasn’t going to be a lucrative choice at all, and various people planted the idea in my head that I should do something in engineering, especially since women of color are so underrepresented in that field. I took AP comp sci in senior year and decided I would just do that. If I couldn’t do what I truly wanted, I didn’t really care what I did instead, I thought I might as well do what makes money. Computer science is basically a few classes short of a math major, and I had spent the past six years complaining about how much I hated math. My first semester of college, I failed both calculus (a calculus class I had already taken in high school, mind you) and gen chem and got put on academic probation. My second semester, I retook calculus and passed with a D, passed my second lab science with a D, and only passed the intro computer science class with a C. I struggled with every assignment, every test, no matter how many hours I studied or professors I spoke to, I couldn’t do well. I spent a good chunk of my freshman year more depressed than I have ever been, and anxious about getting kicked out of school. It took a visit to my doctor to discover that STEM was not meant for me. In my heart, I knew that, but I thought I could push through to get my degree. But what would’ve happened then? I would’ve gotten a job I hated and been just as miserable. Basically, there’s no way that this will end well. Please choose your major based on what you’re passionate about. No matter how hard you try, you can’t make yourself love something you hate. Even if you excel academically, you’re setting yourself up for more unhappiness. It doesn’t matter how much money you have if you’re miserable. Please trust me on this. 

There’s nothing wrong with changing your major. Tbh, changing your major is great. You’re paying all this money to attend university, you deserve to study what you want to study. If you’re like me and discovered that your current major isn’t for you, change it as soon as possible. Don’t push it off and think “it’ll get better!” because before you know it, it’ll be senior year and you’ll either have to finish what you started or stay in school another two years just to graduate. I know it’s scary at first, but your mind changes! I swore to myself i would never change my major, and now it’s only my second year and I’ve transferred to a completely different school in my university to major in a completely different field. You can take a couple classes in the field before officially changing your major to make sure it’s for you. And if you change your major and still hate it, guess what? You can change it again! You can change your major as many times as you want. Many people in the work force have jobs in fields that have nothing to do with their degree, so it’s not like your major is a determining factor for the rest of your life anyway. The point here is that nothing is permanent and change is going to have to be embraced if you decide college is for you.

People are going to judge you, especially if you’re in the humanities or arts. The reactions I got when I told people I was a computer science major versus the reactions I get now when I tell people I’m a gender studies major with an italian minor are so vastly different it’s ridiculous. People used to be so proud and impressed of me. Now when I tell people what I study, they can’t even hide their confusion and judgement. It’s so awful. I constantly get asked, “what are you going to do with that?” “how are you going to make any money?” “what job opportunities are in that field?”. The answer is always that I don’t know yet! I didn’t know when I was a comp sci major either, yet no one asked me then, because STEM professions are seen by our society as more valuable. All i know is that I want to help people. Whether that be through policy, law, psychology, non-profits, even my music, that’s what I want and that’s what I’m going to do. News flash, people! There’s no guarantee of a job no matter what field you’re in. There’s plenty of unemployed people with engineering degrees. Even on campus, people in STEM fields tend to be condescending and look down to us in humanities. I can’t even imagine the crap that art majors get. You have to learn to ignore the looks, the questions, and the sly comments, cause you’ll get a lot of them. Understand that what you’re doing is just as valid and important as anyone else. If it’s what you want to do, it’s inherently super cool!

I understand everyone can’t take my advice on this, and I’m sorry. Obviously some people don’t have the freedom to choose whatever they want to study. I have friends whose parents have threatened to literally cut them off if they don’t stay pre-med. Sometimes factors are outside of your control and that really sucks. What i want to say to you is that, again, nothing is permanent. Someday you’ll be financially independent, living alone, and won’t have to rely on your parents. Their opinions won’t matter. Even if you had to get a degree in mechanical engineering or bio, you don’t have to pursue that. At least not forever. You really just have to look at the light at the end of the tunnel. Your major in college does not define you or your future. 

I hope this maybe helped ease some of your worries concerning college majors! Remember what you want is what’s most important. Post on deck: advice on surviving orientation week (including move-in day and first day of classes)! 

Previous post: Application Advice

[academicsapphic]

The college application process is without a doubt the most stressful time in all four years of high school. Here’s my advice on getting through it:

First of all, if you’re reading this as a freshman or even a sophomore, calm down. You do not need to be worrying about college yet. So many things can change between now and your senior year, any plans you make now likely won’t be the same then. I didn’t even know what schools I was applying to until I applied to them. I thought I knew for sure what school I was attending until I was accepted into the school I actually ended up attending. Just focus on doing well in school and having fun, then cross that bridge when you get there.

Begin researching schools after junior year ends. Junior year is notorious for being the worst one of the four in high school. The work is ridiculously difficult, the pressure is insane, and standardized testing is exhausting. After it’s over, you will have the taken the majority of the classes that will appear on your transcript, you’ll have your ACT/SAT results, and you should now have a good idea of what schools are within your range. Maybe your GPA tanked and you didn’t do as well on the SAT as you thought, so your former match schools are now reaches. Maybe you managed a 3.9 GPA and a 35 on the ACT, so your reaches are well within reason. Summer before my senior year, I (thought I) knew what I wanted to do and began looking for universities that offered me that. 

Be open-minded. I’ve seen lots of students get into the mindset of “these are the schools I want to go to, these are the ones I’m applying to, and that’s final”. Don’t be stubborn. If you find a school you’d never heard of before, but it has a really great program in your field of study and a beautiful campus, add it to your list. It can be scary to venture into the unknown when you’ve had your heart set on going to the same university for your whole life, but you never know what could happen. That school you just discovered could turn out to be your dream school. Your list of prospectives is live, meaning it can change. Welcome those changes with open arms.

Apply to your dream school! Going into senior year, I planned to apply to one school. Yeah, that’s right. One single school. It was a state school with guaranteed admission and I thought that I would save myself the time, stress, and money of getting rejected from other universities. For some reason, I genuinely thought I had no chance of getting into any school with an acceptance rate of less than 50%. Thank god my parents made me apply to Vanderbilt University, which had always been my dream school. One day, completely expecting to get rejected, I got my acceptance email from Vandy, and now I’m starting my second year there in August. All of this to say, again, you literally never know what’s going to happen. “But my grades/extra-curriculars/test scores aren’t good enough!” There were plenty of people in my class with better stats than me in all of those categories that got rejected from Vanderbilt. There’s no rhyme or reason to college admissions. Apply to that reach school, and keep your expectations in check, but you could be pleasantly surprised.

Have multiple safeties. At least two. My safeties were two state schools with guaranteed admission so I knew I’d have somewhere to go in the fall. If you can’t find somewhere with guaranteed admission, find a school with admission averages that you exceed by a lot. I know this seems like obvious advice, but I know of quite a few people, both at my high school and online, who got rejected from literally all the schools they applied to. Those who had a safety went to the safety. Those who didn’t have a safety went no where. Don’t be in that second group. Have safeties, and be prepared to attend them.

Don’t procrastinate. Another piece of advice that might seem obvious, but trust me, you’re going to be tempted. Senioritis is real and you aren’t going to want to do anything, especially if it’s not for a grade. Luckily for me, my AP lit teacher required us to turn in our admissions essay as an assignment in September, so I had mine done way ahead of time. If you don’t have a teacher to hold you accountable, you have to do it yourself. Start your essays as early as possible and edit them over the weeks before the deadline. Ask for your rec letters at the end of junior year before summer break. Make sure you have all your deadlines written down and get all your paperwork in order early. There will be plenty of people spending their Christmas and New Years finishing college apps that are due the next day. Don’t be one of them. You’ll save yourself a lot of stress.

Stay organized. I saw a studyblr post where someone made an excel sheet comparing all their prospective schools, with categories like size of campus, tuition, type of housing, etc. I did that and it was a great way to keep track of everything. I also put all the essays needed for the application as well as when they were due, so I could easily see what I had left to do. I highly recommend doing this: here is a template you can use to get started. Even if you don’t decide to do this, use your own method to keep on top of all your application work. It can easily get lost beneath your schoolwork or other things you have to do. Make sure it doesn’t!

Keep yourself busy. The waiting to hear back from schools after submitting your apps is the worst. It’s torturous. I submitted my applications in October/November, and didn’t start getting decisions until March. That leaves all of winter to be nervous. The only way you’ll get through it is to not think about it. Focus on school, get a job, enjoy your last season of a school sport, just stay busy to keep yourself distracted or else it will be the longest few months of your life. Take a mental break from anything college-related until the good news starts rolling in.

Prepare yourself for disappointment. Rejection is never fun, it’s never easy. You might think you’re going to be fine, but it hits you harder than you think. When I got my first rejection, from Georgia Tech, I cried. I didn’t even want to go to Georgia Tech. But I felt like I wasn’t good enough, and therefore I wouldn’t get into any other school. The whole reason I wanted to apply to just one school was to avoid that feeling. If only I had known that my dream school would accept me just a couple weeks later. It’s going to be tough seeing everyone around you get into their first choice school while you’re receiving rejections, deferrals, or waitlists. What you have to remember is that everything happens for a reason. That rejection means that wasn’t the school for you. You will end up where you are supposed to be. 

The application process is grueling and stressful, but also very rewarding. Stick through it and it will all be worth it. Up next in the University Advice series: choosing/changing your major. If you have any other ideas for topics you want to see covered, please let me know!

Next post: Choosing/Changing Major Advice

[academicsapphic]

hi! i’m a junior in high school and i just wanted to let you know that your posts about the application process and other college stuff are saving my life. they make me feel so much better and way less stressed, so thank you!!!

im glad! good luck with senior year!

[academicsapphic]

Happy summer break! Also, happy Juneteenth!

If any of my posts over the years have helped you out, especially if you happen to be white, feel free to show your support by dropping a couple dollars in my venmo (@brianagrimes7) or cashapp ($brianagrimes7). Being an ally to black people and queer people is great, but fiscal support is better!

[academicsapphic]

i’d just like to document that i am on the 8 meal a week dining plan and i just went to the dining hall to get dinner then promptly dropped it all over my dorm’s lobby but in this example of a trying time i refuse to let college break me! cause it’s only the second day of the semester

[academicsapphic]

Borage: Give a random fact about your childhood.

the first thing that comes to mind is that i was an extra in the hannah montana movie and it was no where near as fun as i thought it would be and child me was disappointed

happy holidays ask me some flower q’s :)

[academicsapphic]

arum-lily, baneberries, and freesia for your flower asks xx

Arum-Lily: What’s the farthest you’d go for a stranger?

hmm i’m not really sure what this means but probably not to far. i wouldn’t go too far for people i do know truthfully

Baneberries: Favorite song?

of all-time, i can’t pick just one, and i don’t even think i can pick one just for the moment cause i’ve been listening to so much new music recently but yesterday i listened to the boygenius ep for the first time and i really liked Ketchum ID!

Freesia: What are three good things that have happened in the past month?

um i finished all my finals without incident, got all A’s for the first time, and ??? started some new tv shows that are good so far lmao sorry for these dry answers

happy holidays ask me some flower q’s

[mandy-hanae]

- ̗̀ physical chemistry lecture + study notes ̖́-

29-07-2018 // Found some more of my Physical Chemistry lecture + study notes while cleaning up my books + notes today! During semester 2, I was beating my brains out trying to understand this chapter, especially the inter-molecular forces topic.

Gonna be quite busy tomorrow to do some tasks for my degree in September! Btw, I’ve been trying to make phone wallpapers / lock screens recently. I’ll post them if I’ve made some that I’m satisfied with! :)

[smartspo]

some revision notes for my calc test tomorrow ✨💭 i swear i’m not panicking,,

studygram

[spectral-ask-memes]

Flower Asks

Alisons: Sexuality? 

Amaranth: Pronouns/Gender? 

Amaryllis: Birthday? 

Anemone: Favorite flower? 

Angelonia: Favorite t.v. show? 

Arum-Lily: What’s the farthest you’d go for a stranger? 

Aster: What’s one of your favorite quotes? 

Aubrieta: Favorite drink? 

Baby’s Breath: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? 

Balsam Fir: Have you ever been in love? 

Baneberries: Favorite song? 

Basket of Gold: Describe your family. 

Beebalm: Do you have a best friend? Who is it? 

Begonia: Favorite color? 

Bellflower: Favorite animal? 

Bergenia: Are you a morning or night person? 

Black-Eyed Susan: If you could be any animal for a day, what would it be?

Bloodroots: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

Bluemink: What are your thoughts on children? 

Blazing Stars: What are you afraid of? Is there a reason why? 

Borage: Give a random fact about your childhood. 

Bugleherb: How would you spend your last day on Earth?  

Buttercup: Relationship Status? 

Camelia: If you could visit anywhere, where would you want to go? 

Candytufts: When do you feel most loved? 

Canna: Do you have any tattoos?  

Canterbury Bells: Do you have any piercings?  

California Poppy: Height?  

Cardinal Flower: Do you believe in ghosts? 

Carnation: What are you currently wearing?  

Catnip: Have you ever slept with a nightlight? 

Chives: Who was the last person you hugged?  

Chrysanthemum: Who’s the last person you kissed?

Cock’s Comb: Favorite font? 

Columbine: Are you tired? 

Common Boneset: What are you looking forward to? 

Coneflower: Dream job? 

Crane’s-Bill: Introvert or extrovert? 

Crocus: Have you ever been in love? 

Crown Imperial: What’s the farthest you would go for someone you care about? 

Cyclamen: Did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a child? What was it? 

Daffodil: What’s your zodiac sign? 

Dahlia: Have you done anything worth remembering? 

Daisy: What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment? 

Daylily: What would you do if your parents didn’t like your partner(s)?  

Dendrobium: Who is the last person that you said “I love you” to?

False Goat’s Beard: What is something you are good at? 

Foxgloves: What’s something you’re bad at? 

Freesia: What are three good things that have happened in the past month? 

Garden Cosmos: How was your day today? 

Gardenia: Are you happy with where you’re at in your life? 

Gladiolus: What is something you hope to do in the next year or two? 

Glory-of-the-Snow: What are ten things that make you happy/you’re grateful to have in your life? 

Heliotropium: What helps you calm down when you feel stressed?  

Hellebore: How do you show affection? 

Hoary Stock: What are you proudest of? 

Hollyhock: Describe your ideal day. 

Hyacinth: What do you like to do in your free time?  

Hydrangea: How long have you known your best friend? How did you meet them?

Irises: Who can you talk to about (almost) everything?

Laceleaf: How many friends do you have?

Lantanas: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received? 

Larkspur: What do you think of yourself? 

Lavender: What’s your favorite thing about yourself? 

Leather Flower: What’s your least favorite thing about yourself?  

Lilac: What’s something you liked to do as a child? 

Lily: Who was your best friend when you were a kid? 

Lily of the Incas: What is something you still feel guilty for? 

Lily of the Nile: What is something you feel guilty for that you shouldn’t feel guilty about?  

Lupine: What does your name mean? Why is that your name? 

Marigold: Where did you grow up? Tell us about it. 

Morning Glory: What was your bedroom like growing up? 

Mugworts: What was it like for you as a teenager? Did you enjoy your teenage years?  

Norwegian Angelica: Tell us about your mom.

Onions: Tell about your dad.  

Orchid: Tell about your grandparents. 

Pansy: What was your most memorable birthday? What made it be so memorable? 

Peony: What was your first job? 

Petunia: If you’re in a relationship, how did you meet your partner(s)? If you’re not in a relationship, how did you meet your crush/how do you hope to meet your future partner(s), if you want any? 

Pincushion: How do you deal with pain? 

Pink: Where is home? 

Plantain Lilies: If you could go back in time, what is one thing you would stop/change? 

Prairie Gentian: Who is someone you look up to? Describe them. 

Primrose: Describe your ideal life. 

Rhodendron: What is something you used to believe in as a child? 

Ricinus: Who’s the most important in your life? 

Rose: What’s your favorite sound? 

Rosemallows: What’s your favorite memory? 

Sage: What’s your least favorite memory? 

Snapdragon: At this moment, what do you want?  

St. John’s Wort: Is it easy or difficult for you to express how you feel about things? 

Sunflower: What is something you don’t want to imagine life without? 

Sweet Pea: How much sleep did you get last night? 

Tickseed: What’s your main reason to get up every morning? 

Touch-Me-Not: How do you feel about your current job? 

Transvaal Daisy: What’s your favorite item of clothing? 

Tropical White Morning Glory: Describe your aesthetic.  

Tulip: What would be the best present to get you? 

Vervain: What’s stressing you out most right now? 

Wisteria: How many books have you read in the past few months? What were they called? 

Wolf’s Bane: Where do you want to be in life this time next year?

Yarrow: Do you know what vore is?

Zinnia: Give a random fact about yourself.

[americanhorrorstudies-deactivat]

★ 12.03.2018 ★ i am blessed with the disease called “SYNESTHESIA” which means that some senses of mine are triggered by others. for example: some smells/sounds/feelings produce colours for me. especially words.

soo! i am working on memorising mark antony’s soliloquy from julius caesar to present in my english class, and it looks like i threw up a rainbow all over my paper LOL. but! the method is that the words i’ve been appear to me in sections of colour. so i colour code. if i memorise the order then i have an easier time remembering the words.

iiii’m also listening to marlon brando’s rendition of it from the 1953 movie “julius caesar” which is actually very well done!

☆ amnesia - 5SOS | 10:45:15 p.m. | 50 •F ☆

[smartspo]

i’m finally on vacation, but i’m still taking the time to work on my extended essay 💫 i’m trying to get rid of this as soon as i can,,

studygram