The Return of Last Year's Alums

After many Dawson students finish their first semesters of college, they visit their old school during the first couple weeks of January to share stories about crazy roommates, jump into basketball practices, and simultaneously terrify and reassure current seniors. This year the college counseling office corralled six students from the class of ’15 and put them in front of the current senior class during lunch on January 7^th.

            Like Dawson graduates generally, members of the panel have matriculated at a variety of schools. Some are at private liberal arts colleges, including Gabrielle Greenfield (Lafayette), Sara Sosnowski (Chapman), Nicole Towner (Trinity), and Jordan Bacher (Tufts). Alex Aleu (U of OK), Jake Blank (UVA) chose big public universities, as did Julia Larsen (U of WI), who wrote in her responses. Their answers to our questions about how well-prepared they found themselves during the first term were informative and funny. Here’s a few things we learned.

            Rather than the proverbial “freshman fifteen,” Jordan said he lost weight in his first semester. The dining hall was great, he said, but couldn’t compete with mom’s cooking. He then urged seniors to learn how to cook and do laundry right away. But Sara, who spent her sophomore year at a boarding school before coming to Dawson, felt perfectly prepared to be independent. In fact, Sara gave some of the most insightful advice about dealing with roommates. They don’t have to be your best friends, she said, just people you can get along with.

 

College is easier, and harder.

            Nicole spoke for most of the panel when she said that while the work for each individual class is relatively easy, time management has become a real challenge. The volume of work, especially essays, required a greater adjustment than the complexity of the material. Jake and Gaby talked about missing how easy it was for them to connect with their teachers at Dawson, but Julia noted that her favorite class was a Chinese course with only twelve students. All the students agreed, however, that opportunities for individual support and collaboration definitely existed in college, but accessing them took more initiative.

            The great difference in scale was a big theme for our panelists. When asked about their biggest classes, they gave numbers ranging from forty-five to more than three hundred. Julia wrote that going from “50 students in my graduating class to 1,200 in my dorm alone was weird at first, but now I see people I know wherever I go.” Alex, who was the senior class president at Dawson, said his school’s bigger size has just given him more clubs to join.  

 

            Nicole chose Trinity in part because she had the chance to play softball there. Still, she was surprised to learn that, after the unexpected departure of an older catcher, her freshman year could include a lot of playing team. Jordan, who was an excellent basketball player at Dawson, planned to row at Tufts. Though still part of the team, a nagging injury has limited his participation.  

 

Despite all the stress, students are happy about where they end up.         

            Alex admitted that he only applied to one school, which shocked most of Dawson’s current seniors. No one else on the panel sent out fewer than five applications. But Alex knew what he wanted to study and the school culture he was after. As a result, he doesn’t have any regrets about a lack of options. Gaby, at the other extreme, applied to more than fifteen schools, was accepted to most, and had scholarship offers from many. She is happy at Lafayette, and knew she would be when a visit gave her the “feel” she was looking for.

 

            Sara, who shares her dorm room with two other students, admitted to missing her room and her own bed. Gaby admitted that she was shocked by how much she missed her pets. But Julia captured the prevailing sentiment about homesickness: “the only times I’ve actually been homesick have been when I’m talking to my family or friends on the phone. I’m so busy all the time that I don’t have that much time to think about missing home.”

           

            All of our panelists spoke of incredibly full semesters. Their stories about adjusting to college life were insightful and surprisingly funny. Dawson’s current juniors should look forward to next year’s panelists representing the class of 2016 some time in January of 2017.