Ohio State University-Main Campus Top Questions

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

Jennifer

How to not get stressed

Elisabeth

I wish I had known how hard organic chemisty was going to be.

nicolai

I wish I had known that my core business classes would be curved down if everyone preformed well. And also how poor the campus bus system (CABS) is.

Kiya

I wish I had known that the financial aid wouldn't be enough to cover my tuition and fees.

Antonio

One thing that I wished I knew was how big Columbus actually was. I found out after my first year, but it took me some time to branch out from campus.

Zachery

Nothing, I did my research before coming here, talking to my family members that are currently attending this school.

Colleen

Before I took my steps on this campus, I wish I knew that I needed to maintain the balance that I had in high school. My health habits such as eating and exercising were altered freshman year because I was overwhelmed with involvement and schoolwork. If I kept my routine from high school I wouldn’t have bad habits like eating cheap, fast food or skipping workouts in order to complete assignments and work.

Anastasia

It's so big, it's almost rediculously big.

Stephen

The more invovled you are, the stronger social life you can develop. It's hard to develop a strong social life without being involved in orgs.

Hillary

I wish I knew how competitive it was on Maon Campus.

Andrea

I wish I had known more about what I wanted to do as a career, and more of a specific plan for my education. There are many resources here and I think I missed some opertunies to utalize them fully.

Kody

Ohio State had been my home long before I came here. My family has a long history at this university, and because of this I was already familiar with most of the campus. The only issue that did arise when I first stepped on to campus was that although the student population was so large, class sizes can still be extremely small. If I had known this before I would not have felt as aprehensive to ask professors for help. In smaller classrooms, the connections I have made with professors have been much easier than I first intended.

Seth

I wish I would have known how I was going to pay for it since I can only get about half tuition from FAFSA.

Melissa

I wish I understood the insignifance of the problems I've faced throughout life. Coming here has opened my eyes to an entirely new population and I'm able to step back and realize how grateful I truly am. In high school, people stress about the little things. People set their problems above all others. When it comes down to it however, somebody else is always going to be dealing with something more severe. It's eye opening experiences like these that I wish I had had sooner.

Samantha

I wish that I would have realized how difficult it would be to get in-state residency and how difficult it would be to keep up financially. Off campus housing is expensive, even though it is a lot cheaper than living on campus. I currently have two jobs, am in the interviewing process for a third and just applied for a fourth. Since I have to be financially independent due to residency, I have to work a lot in order to pay rent and bills and I have to take out loans. This is a great university, but also expensive.

Katelyn

Before coming to this school, I wish I would've known about the quarter to semester switch. Although it was made evident right before me freshman year, when applying to and choosing a university I didn't know my school would be switching to semesters after I would complete one year on quarters. The university did its best to make a smooth transfer to semester, but some flaws have set students like myself back on their graduation times because of the change in requirements.

Alison

I think I knew everything I needed to before coming to this school

Justin

I wish I would have known how great the distances are on campus. I had visited campus before deciding to apply, but I did not realize how big it really was. A trip from end to end can take upwards of 20 minutes and the amount of walking us students do gave many of our feet blisters during the first week. There are buses that make the trips much easier, but the hours can be limited and drop off after a certain hour of night. All in all, it's more than managable it just took an adjustment.

Courtney

I wish I would have known that this school is not too big to ask for help. I felt horrible to ask my professors who had many students for help. All the professor deal with many students but they are very helpful and responsive to students. Also I wish I would have known about the various help center around campus and all the aid the campus helps provide.

Alexander

The Thing I wish I had known before coming into college was that it would take a lot of hard work and dedication in order to be successful in having a quality education. No one tells the high school student that college requires more attention and flexibility than that in high school.

Khadija

I wish I had know more about how financial issues are here.

Roni

The one thing that I wish I knew before I came here was how to use the bus system.

Cassidy

Coming to Ohio State, I wish I would have known how busy the first two weeks would be. From the moment you arrive on campus, there is constantly something to be doing and after a few days packed with Welcome Week activities, it can all quickly become overwhelming. I wish that someone would have told me once Welcome Week ends and you get settled into your classes enough to know where they are without having to look at a map, things calm down. If all of college was as busy as the first two weeks, I wouldn't survive.

Carly

I wish I would have known how much walking I would have to do every day!

Shawn

I wish I would have known what I wanted to major in. Going to college "undecided" was not a good experience for me. I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I wish I could go back and tell the high school version of myself to take a year off from school to try to figure out what I wanted to do in college. I also wish I hadn't been so close-minded towards greek life.

Rashawnda

I wish I could've visited more often and got a feel of the campus. Also I wish I could've did a transition program to help me settle.

Joshua

Well I will be in incoming freshman. I have not completed one day at Ohio State yet, so I don't have any words of wisdom quite yet.

Cody

People go crazy for Buckeyes games. Like beyond what I thought when people used the word crazy to me in passing. The whole campus area shuts down and becomes this vibrant space of people tailgating lawns, and what might be best described as people moving in herds. Prepare yourself mentally for something crazy.

Shaun

There is not much else I wish I knew beforehand. After all of the tours I attended I got much sound advice. Of which includes building good relationships with your professors, ask questions, and join some student groups at least one of which is 'outside your comfort zone.'

Allison

I wish I would have known how much I would love it there. Making the decision to go to Ohio State was difficult and a lot of guilt was involved. Knowing how happy it would make me would have made the decision much easier.

Amy

I wish I had known that you don’t have to try to change to fit in because when you are yourself, then you will fit in at Ohio State. College is a great opportunity to reinvent who you want to be as a person, and that it doesn't matter who you were in the past. At Ohio State, I wish I had known I would meet my best friends and that I hadn't been so worried about leaving home, because I would love it there.

Jalpa

I felt well prepared for going in to college. OSU's orientation helped me familiarize myself with the the resources available to me to have a successful first year. However, I wasn't prepared for the courseload required for honors courses.

Eman

Something I wish that I would have known before coming to OSU is the idea that it is ok to change your mind about what you want to do with your future. I grew up always focused that I would become a doctor, but many people do not realize that college is the time to really discover what you want to do in life. If I knew this when I first started college at OSU, I would have made better choices with the classes I was taking rather than wasting time in a field I was not sure of.

Ashley

I wish I would have had a major picked out so that I could start taking the classes I needed right off the bat. I was unsure of what to study so I took a couple classes I ended up not needing and I regret that.

Brooke

The affect the size of the campus (student to teacher ratio) has on academics.

Zachary

Ohio State is a big university, with a total enrollment of over 50,000 students, which is often intimidating to a lot of students in the college decision making process. But sometimes a focus on the statistics can dilute a school into a meaningless slush of numbers. The college proverb that tour guides at OSU like to echo is, “You can make a big university small, but you can’t make a small university big.” Within a semester you will find yourself making small groups of friends that will remain your close companions for all four years.

Dena

How to get around such a wide spread campus

Zena

It's not as hard as you might think! I wish somebody had told me that I can double major and double minor or triple major and still graduate on time and not have an overload. Only in the end of my second year, I discovered that fact

Christopher

How to be a better college student. How to study and budget my time.

Katie

I would have liked know the cheapest places to purchse books on campus, as well as where all of the tutoring centers were located.

Matthew

How much more intense college is than high school. I though that I knew that but when I got here I realized that I was way off. I had to learn how to study because college didn't come easy to me like high school did. Having to work hard at school was a big change for me. I would have liked to have known more realistically what my workload would be.

danielle

I felt prepared for classes and my living arrangement and the general size of campus so everything seemed to be covered before I got to campus.

Nertila

One of the things I wish I had known before I attended Ohio State was about the alumni programs and the benefits gained from networking with various community leaders. In my fourth year of undergrad I learned that Ohio State has a very strong relationship with alumni and a majority of the alumni sponsor networking activities and other social events to help students get involved and network with alumni from various programs. I wish I had known that the alumni are very supportive because I would have most definitely attended events where I could socialize and network with alumni.

Nicole

I felt very prepared going into college, however I wish I had known how to separate myself from wanting to spend time socializing and making new friends in order to focus on studying. There have been many nights where I sit and get to know the people I live with because I was afraid if I didn't right then, they would be gone. I wish I had known they are always there, and that it is okay to take the weeknights as time to focus on studying rather than making new friends.

Madison

I wish I had known the the importance of diversty before coming to this school. The Ohio State University shows great interest in diversity and the way that the students react with each other.

John

more about social psychology.

Justyn

I wish I would have known how to be better prepared for my classes. Going from high school to college was a very difficult transition. The courses weren't necessarily harder, but the exams were more elaborate. It's as if high school didn't prepare me at all for the caliber of the exams.

Kathryn

Looking back, I wish I had known more about the on-campus housing at Ohio State. I moved into a freshman dormitory without really knowing what to expect. On campus tours and at orientation, they show you a "typical" dorm room. However, I was assigned a triple rather than a double; meaning that I had not had the chance to view an example of my room before move-in day. Also, I had chosen to buy a bedloft but had missed the deadline so I had to arrange the delivery after my two roommates and I had already moved in.

Kelsey

College: “the best years of your life” (my parents). College: “partying, clubbing, and drinking” (my friends). I wish someone had told me before my arrival at OSU that the two definitions do not have to be synonymous, that there are others who enjoy themselves and remember it the next morning. I wish I had known that you can have just as much fun stomping in puddles, gelling the boys’ hair, furiously baking fruit pizza, skipping in leaf piles, slinging food at each other, and watching “Modern Family.” I wish I had known that it’s okay to still be goofy.

Samantha

Before I came to Ohio State University, I wish I had known more about how the university's grading system works. When I received my grades after my first midterms, I was extremely upset. In high school, I barely ever got anything less than an 85{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} on a test, so receiving less than a 50{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} on my Chemistry 121 midterm shook the very foundation of my academic confidence. I worked very hard the rest of the quarter because I was terrified of receving a poor grade, and to my surprise I ended with an A for the quarter.