Get to Know the People Around You

In a university of over 40,000 students, it is so important to get acquainted with people in your classes.  Making friends in a variety of classes whether they’re classes for your major or not widens the range of friends you have. Having a wide range of friends opens your eyes to new perspectives and ideas.  Put yourself out there and talk to someone you don’t sit next to everyday.  Sophomore year I was in an astronomy class to fill my lab science core requirement for liberal arts.  I was thinking when I signed up for the class that it would be all about looking at pretty stars-but it was so much more.  There was a good amount of physics and some math involved with it, which really scared me because I never did well with physics or any kind of math.  I got to know people who sat around me in lecture and we ended up working together on every lab at the end of each week.  It just so happened that one of the four students in the group was biochemistry, another student was mechanical engineering, a theater major and myself-visual communications major.  When put together we worked really well because essentially we had two very analytical thinkers and two creative thinkers.  The labs consisted of some math and physics but also had drawings that needed to be done.  We would put our best effort forth but would fill in for one another’s weaknesses.  We learned a lot from one another by having people with a diverse skill set put together.  I ended up doing pretty well in the class but without this group of people joined together that would not normally be together I may not have done so well. 

My advice to any student at Purdue is to get to know the people around you. In particular, people you might not normally socialize with because likely they will have valuable ideas to offer just as you do.