Indiana University-Bloomington Top Questions

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you about freshman year?

Casey

I wish I would have known how hard it is and how much you have to push yourself to get involved on campus. I also wish I would have known what a stress paying for school on your own is.

Emily

One thing that I wish I had known before was the amount of scholarship opportunities there are for incoming freshman. It is key to check early and often to ensure that scholarships offered by the university are utilized.

Daniel

I wish I'd known more about the transportations services available.

Janay

I wish I knew more about the overwhelming Greek culture on the campus. I also wish I knew about more of the scholarship opportunities.

Katie

Nothing I love all the new things you learn each day at IU!

Sophie

Professors rarely care for students. Working hard to prove to them that you deserve their time, attention, and help is one of the greater lessons one needs to learn. Instilling that tenacious work ethic makes the difference between being average in class and excelling.

Archie

I wish I knew study habits before I came to this school. I wish I knew how much the overall costs of schooling would be before I came to Indiana University.

Kimberly

I wish I knew how much my life would change after the experience of getting a college degree. I spent a lot of time focusing on coursework and studying, and an equal amount of time participating in extra curricular activities that helped me build a strong social and professional foundation. I would have spent more time engaging in everything that was available to me, and I would have spent less time worrying. I would have taken away the things that stressed me out, and made sure I was living every moment to the fullest.

Tracy

I wish I had known more about the courses that are offered here. There are so many areas that interest me, but I transferred so many credits when I matriculated that I had very little room for electives. Had I put in more effort to research what courses were available to me, I might have been able to broaden my curriculum a bit more. By the same token, I could have made room for more electives if I had made myself more aware of crosslisted courses (i.e. courses which might apply to more than one area).

Kelly

I wish I had known that the majority of the classes for my major were not on campus and that I would have to take city busses to get there. Also that there isn't a good direct bus or transit to bigger cities farther away.

Jenna

I wish I had known more about the professors. I was not sure which classes were best for me to sign up for based on the professors teaching style and my learning style.

Virginia

Nothing.

Courtney

Brooke

I wish I would have known more about all of the opportunities they have here. IU even has summer programs for high school students that I definately wish I could have been apart of. Other than that, it has been everything I ever thought it would be.

Manan

I wish I had known more about the wide selection of majors. I ended up changing my major three times before I found one the fit me best. If I had known more about the opportunities here I may have been able to get started on my coursework a lot earlier.

Lauren

If I could travel back in time, I would tell my high school self that my teachers are there for my benefit. In college, upon attending office hours, I realized that educators want their students to succeed and are willing to put in extra time to help their students learn. I now know that my high school teachers would have been more than happy to help me understand material that I found confusing. I wish I had known this before I went to college so I would have utilized my teachers as a resource for extra help during high school.

David

The classes are tougher than you would expect.

Luke

I wish I had known to be more organized. I would have told myself to write down everything. Every little thing, from due dates of minor assignments to due dates for final projects. I would have also told myself to not procrastinate, because once you get behind in college classes, there's almost no chance of catching up. College is 90{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} work and 10{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} play, and I would have reminded myself of that. College is a job, and you have to work harder at it than any other job out there. I wish I could tell myself all this.

Elizabeth

I wish I had known about the incredible facilities and opportunities available to fine and performing arts students here. I am a student of both, and am overwhelmed by the possibilities and how relatively small my skill set is in comparison to all of the things I want to try. In the course of two semesters I was able to join the African American Dance company, edit an art and literary magazine, see some of my favorite musicians live (all in town!), and learn a wide variety of new artistic mediums. The out-of-classroom learning experiences are countless.

Clair

Taking 19 hours is a very heavy load!

Kayla

I wish I had known to apply for more scholarships before I came to Indiana University. The downside of this college is that they include a lot of fees and charges that they do not tell you about until after you have been accepted and are paying fees to secure your dorm room and paying the fee to secure your place at their college. I was under the impression that I would be paying around fifteen thousand dollars a year, which transformed into over twenty-one thousand dollars a year due to fees.

Hannah

I wish I would have known about the amount of "partying" that occurred at IU. It sometimes disturbes me the amount of trouble that happens at these events and the cattiness of many of the sororities and fraternities.

Mike

I wish i had known about the various scholarships that IU offeres to students. There are so many scholarships that many people are qualified for but have never heard of. I wish i had been given a better dorm to live in. The best dorms are in Northwest area, they have the better food courts and air conditioning.

Ryan

I wish I knew the value of advanced placement classes. I wish I knew how truly poor and worthless the high school I went to was. My room mates all transferred in over twenty credits to begin their freshman years. I was literally never even encouraged to take advanced placement courses and am therefor now behind - relative to other students.

Daniel

I wish I had known that the walking distance between classes is extremely long and not to take 8:00 AM classes!!

Qiang

I am a transfer student from University of Bridgeport in Fall 2010, I knew well about this university "climate" before I came here, and this is also the reason why I came here. What's more I wishes to know before I came is whether I can be myself and get a super great progress with my efforts. I want to be somebody so that I need to find an appropriate place with the "climate" that I wanted.

Arianna

I wish I would have known the difficulties of adjusting from high school to college, and who to contact if I feel confused or alone.

Laura

I wish that I had aquired more time-management skills in high school. There's so much to do and a lot of reading in classes, and it's hard to manage all the activities with all of the work. That wasn't something I was prepared to do because there weren't so many distractions in high school.

Lindsay

That there were so many out of state students that attended there.

Matthew

It would have have been better knowing what living in a dorm was really like. I wan't prepared for the heavy drinking and pot smoking that I saw happening. I had a hard time getting to know people because the drinking was so pronounced it was hard to find non-drinkers so I could go out and just have fun without drunken stupidity ruining many weekends.

Brooke

I wish I would have known how cold it got in the winter. Coming from the south, I definitely did not expect the type of cold whether we encounter in the winter. Although yes, I knew it would be cold, Bloomington is definitely a different kind of cold that I am used to and upon walking outside in the winters, a sense of a sharp chilling breeze always rubs up against your face. This would not have prevented me from going to the school though, I just should have brought warmer clothes!

Kaci

I wish I would've known to get as invoved as possible. Even if you onl seem half interested in a club, go to the call-out meeting. College is all about building your resume, so get involved!

Nicole

I wish I knew more about the liviing accomodations in the dorms. Always having my own room at home and being able to stretch out around the room for comfort, I didn't realize the size of the dorm rooms and not having to deal with another person in my space, I wish there would have been more direction in this area on what to expect.

Jon

I wish I would of realized that IU is so big, I thought I knew that it is big from coming to orientation, but once you get here and start going to class you realize that it is so big. Trying to get from one class which is on one side of the campus to another class on the other side of campus takes time management.

Traci

I wish that I had known how different college would be than high school. Even though many people told me that college was tough, I never quite understood fully until I experienced it first hand. As far as IU specifically, I wish that I had known certain policies better than I did. For example, registering for classes, and deciding on a major, and finding programs that will benefit future career plans would be much easier if I had better and more available sources of information.

Jessica

I wish I would have had more knowledge about the housing in the Bloomington area. I was initially going to rent an apartment but was talked into sharing a house with 2 other roomates. If I would have researched the area, talked to other students at the University and not have rushed into a decision I would not have been disatisfied with living in a house with 2 other roomates.

Olivia

How large the campus really is; I walk to class everyday and never see anyone twice. It also helps to know about all of the support groups; coming from overseas, homesickness was more of a problem than I first anticipated.

Lyndsey

I wish I would have known how large of a transition it is from high school to college. I was warned by many but did not heed their warnings accordingly. I love being at a large university such as IU, but it was a difficult jump from my high school of 2,000 students to a state school of 40,000.

Mary

Be friendly to everyone and they'll be friendly back.

Alyssa

I wish I would have realized how different it is and how alone you can be if you don't make an effort to make friends and get involved.

Kylee

I wish I had known how far it really is from campus to live in an apartmet off campus.

Mary

That it was not culturally diverse as I thought it would be.

Steven

Enjoy it, get your work done on time and then live it up on the weekends.

Lindsey

I wish that I knew there were certain academic advisors for each field. I am an Exercise Science Major, and my advisor is very rude to me. She downgrades me and talks to me as if I am not smart enough to talk with her. I ask her for simple help and she has always made me feel uncomfortable. I wish that there was a way I could talk to someone else, so that I knew I was on the right track to success. My advisor is really the only big thing I have been dissapointed about with Indiana University

Mike

The abundance of alcohol.

Kevin

I wish I knew how important having a job is to living comfortably at school.

Bobby

I wish I had developed better study habits in high school that I could have carried over to college.

Kevin

How much it really costs to attend an out of state school.

Jacob

Which dorm to live in.

Laura

I wish I had known my freshman dorm was full of drama before I came to this school. I would have applied right away to move out of that dorm. That living situation caused a lot of stress for me.