PR11FA 1W
Thursday, July 19, 1984
Page 15A
Rookies are OK, just try
not to act like one
By JOEY HALL I
There is no stigma attached to being a
freshman here. You are probably comng
from a high school with a rigidly hierar
chical class structure: freshmen groveling
under the feet of nearly everyone else;
seniors on top, proud, defiant and arro
gant. College seniors are too preoccupied
with their futures to be any of these. ;
Consequently, freshmen are simply stu-,
dents like everyone else, all playing thei
same game. Here's the rub: you are a
rookie. And no one likes to be thought
of as a rookie. With that in mind, here
are some thoughts to make you an aware
(and thus less obvious) rookie:
1. Don't bring your high school year
books to grace your dorm room. This reeks
of rook. First of all, you have already seen
them. Second, no one will truly be
interested in seeing a picture of the girl
you dated in 1 1th grade.
2. A sure way to spot rookies is through
their appearance. Shiny and brand new
shorts, tennis shoes, and shirts, deep dark
blue jeans, cotton shirts with creases from
the store shelf, glossy black hightops: all
are dead giveaways. If you really feel like
you need a brand new wardrobe to come
to Carolina (and you don't), then at least
dirty everything up a little before you
arrive. You don't want to look like you
just stepped off the pages of an L.L. Bean
catalog.
3. Don't be cool and think you can skip
the mandatory meetings during Orienta
tion week. There is no cool in explaining
to your adviser in December that you
should be able to drop Chemistry 11
because you didn't know how firm a
"drop" deadline was.
4. On the subject of Orientation, take
advantage of all the offerings you can '
youll know what the deal is a lot more
quickly if you do.
5. Don't worry about the dorm you got.
The size and location of the dorm have
no bearing on whether or not you will like
it. You should be able to figure out what
does have bearing.
6. Don't be quick to tell everyone on the
hall that your father has a jet. By the same
token, don't tell everyone that mom and
dad had to mortgage the trailer to send
you to Chapel Hill. Neither will elicit
respect or sympathy, and neither goes a
long way toward winning friends and
influencing people.
7. Don't come expecting to have five
"close" friends by the time classes start.
Friendships male and female are a
long time cementing.
8. Don't fall into the habit of hanging
around with your friends from high school
or your hometown. This gets dull pretty
quickly.
9. Do come expecting to like and appre
ciate your roommate.
10. Do take a class or two that you are
genuinely interested in your first semester.
Don't say, "I'm really not genuinely
interested in anything," because if you
were that dull you could never have been
accepted here. In other words, don't be
a masochist and try to "get all the
requirements out of the way." You have
four years to fulfill everything.
11. If you decide to go through rush,
don't feel ill at ease in the fraternity or
sorority house. It is the member's job to
be a good host. They want to meet the
"real you," and a lot of them have had
a good deal of experience recognizing a
facade. Be careful when girls start hugging
you and crying that they want you to be
a sister so much that they don't know what
they'll do if you pledge elsewhere, or when
the guys lead you into a cramped room
with the brothers whom you know the best
and tell you that their frat is the only frat
for you. And if you don't get an invitation
to join the one you want, so what? You
can always try again if you like . No one
is going to sew a scarlet "B" for "black
balled" on you. It's really no big deal.
12. Take any advice given to you by an
uDperclassman with a grain of salt. You
know yourself better than we do, and in
any case, you aren't the average freshman.
See you in the fall.
Joey Hall is a senior Spanish and econom
ics major from Raleigh.
Balance key to success
By PAUL PARKER
Enjoy the rest of your summer. Like
many of the people before and after me,
I spent the summer before my freshman
year worrying about what college would
be like and trying to imagine all the ways
in which I would be overwhelmed by this
great intellectual monster. Do not worry
about it. College was nothing like I had
imagined it to be nor was it like what
people had described it as being. Though
we all come in and leave through the same
door, no two college experiences are the
same. The one thing that can be said is
that it is good!
I had always been in awe of universities,
and what they stood for seemed to tower
over me as if on a great pedestal. Nice
surprise: once I got here reality set in and
college life taught me to climb on top of
the pedestal and look around. I soon
figured out that my fears were just fears
of the unknown.
Nice surprise . number two: familiarity
starts on day one. You may feel like you
are coming into this all alone, but that
won't last more than 24 hours. During
Orientation, you will be surrounded by
people who will be the first in a long line
of friends and relationships, many of
which will last long after you have
graduated.
Now that you know not to worry ... at
Carolina, you will experience a new
dimension in the way you perceive life and
people. You will be introduced to the new
and unusual, and "diversity" will become
prominent in your vocabulary (so will
"awesome!"). Going through college is
difficult at times, but you will learn to
handle and adapt to the pressures. You
Now for some practical advice: Balance.
That word is the key to a successful
"Carolina experience." You don't need to
tackle the whole world in your first
semester there's plenty of time for that
later. On the other hand, you don't want
This time will be incred
ibly busy and will go by so
fast, but at its end there
will be no four years of
your life which you will
remember and love so well
to come in and just study, either. So get
involved; just don't overdo it. You need
the break, the experience and, most of all,
the balance. Your first semester is impor
tant do all you can to make a good
start because it will really help you along
the way. But don't be too worried if you
haven't chosen a major or if your grades
aren't what you would have wanted all
that will come. Remember, what you are
really here for is to get an education.
Academics, social activities, sports and
extracurriculars will fuse together to create
a total educational experience. You are
going to love it.
I guess 111 go ahead and put a plug in
for Student Government. When you get
here you will have all kinds of questions.
We can help find the answers, just come
by and see us!
Last, but not least, bring an umbrella.
It rains here all the time.
Paul Parker, a senior international studies
major from Jacksonville, Fid., is student
body president.
This special issue of "The Tar Heel, the largest issue in the summer,
is being sent to all in-coming freshmen, junior transfers, and grad
students about 7,500 all told. So, for the benefit of our new readers
this issue includes stories and columns that might serve to familiarize
them with "the Carolina experience. "
Enjoy the issue, the rest of the summer and welcome to UNC!
Doris Betts on freshman year survival
By ALLEN MICH1E
The Tar Heel asked Doris Betts to offer
a faculty perspective on the issue of
incoming freshmen. Betts has long been
one of UNC's most eloquent and popular
professors. She is an Alumni Distin
guished Professor in the English depart
ment, chairperson of the Faculty Council
and is the author of several successful
novels and short stories, among them
Heading West, "Beast of the Southern
Wild," "The River to Pickle Beach,"
"Astronomer," "The Scarlet Thread,"
"Tall Houses in Winter" and "The Gentle
Insurrection." The Tar Heel spoke to
her by phone at her home in Hillsborough.
Q. What are the most important lessons
a student should have learned before
leaving home for college?
A. The most important ones most of
them have not learned. One is how to
survive on their own with the chores that
are involved: laundry, managing a check
book, all of that. But the second thing is
how to study, and the high school students
are not learning that.
Q. How can people learn these skills on
their own if the high schools aren't
teaching them?
A. There are any number of good books
on how to study which are available in
the library, and there's also some help over
in Nash Hall with the Student Counseling
Service.
Q.What do you see as the best frame of
mind or perspective with which to begin
college?
A. Optimism, I would think. It seems to
me that many freshmen come to Carolina
and find it overwhelming. They find it
large, and they are afraid it is impersonal.
So they don't make an effort to get to
know the teachers. I think that if they
expect the best, they will find that most
people are willing to talk' to them.
Q. Is there a problem at UNC with
students not getting to know their
professors?
A. I think there is some problem. I don't
think there has to be. Most of the advisers
are chosen because they are very good at
talking with people. Most of the people
teaching freshmen are accessible, hold
office hours and don't mind students
coming to knock on the door. But
freshmen are often afraid to do that. It's
very important that they exercise some
initiative. Nobody here is going to beg
them for conferences. Nobody's going to
come to them. They have to make the first
move.
Q. As a faculty member, what do you
see as the greatest strengths and wea
knesses of being a freshman?
A. I teach freshmen every semester.
Certainly one of their strengths is that they
are still positive and eager to learn. That's
a joy to work with. There's not the
cynicism or the boredom that you some
times get with upperclassmen. The disad
vantages are that they are simply not very
well-read, and they don't have a large
enough context in which to place what they
learn. They tend to treat their courses as
if each one was an isolated box instead
of making them a synthesis.
Q. Do you remember your own fresh
man year very well?
A. Yes, I do. And that place seemed as
large to me as Carolina. Betts attended
Women's College, now UNC
Greensboro. I had never lived away from
home before. It was a good year for me.
Two ways, particularly. One, it was the
first time I had met a great many bright
women, and two, I did learn to study for
the first time. I never had to study in high
school in order to get by with A's and
B's. A third thing was that I did very well
scholastically, so I stopped feeling as
stupid as I did for the first two months.
Q. Is there anything else you would like
to add?
A. I think Orientation looks like one big
party to freshmen, and I think it's very
important to tell them not to get behind
in class, to get off to a good start and
then to be consistent. By the time midterms
come it is panic time.
' Allen Afichie, a junior English major
from New Braunfels, Texas, is arts &
features editor of The Tar Heel.