BWW Blog: There's A First Time for Everything

For all of my terrified freshmen out there, this one's for you. My stomach has been in knots for a week thinking of my first day of class on Tuesday, October 1st. Here's the thing: I'm a junior at the University of California, Irvine, but I feel like a freshman all over again as I step onto the arts campus as a new student there. After 2 years of overthinking, I decided to go for it and tack on "Drama" to my Literary Journalism degree; let me tell you, I'm about as nervous as can be. I've been involved with theater my entire life, and my dream job is to write for a theater publication in New York, but for my first two years of college, I thought being a journalism student was enough. I'm here to tell you: for me, it was not. To all of my writers out there, find a subject you want to write about, and take advantage of the fact that you have the opportunity to learn just about anything in college. For me, this meant honing in on my specialization in theater. So here I am. Moments away from beginning introductory theater courses and scared out of my mind.

Walking into class on your first day cannot be downplayed in any way as a relaxing experience. You're new, expectations are high, and let's face it, you probably don't know a single soul in the room. That's okay. If I've learned anything about my time in the theatre community, it's that you'll find some of the most accepting people there. Even still, here's my first day icebreaker: Walk in on the first day with two copies of the syllabus printed out.

All you have to do is sit down, say hi to the person next to you, and ask if they know if you all had to print out the syllabus. If the answer is "yes," then you're relieved because you already did, and if they forgot to, you have an extra to give them. If the answer is "no," then oops, you printed one anyways, do they want a physical copy as well? If the answer is "I have no idea," then you have a copy for each of you, just in case. They already have one printed? Perfect, does the person next to them? The simple gesture goes a long way, and it makes things much easier to segue into introducing yourself.

For me, the nervousness doesn't stem from the typical first day jitters. I'm an extrovert, and meeting new people has always been a source of excitement and happiness for me. I find that what I am most nervous about is the feeling of being "rusty," as I haven't taken a theater course since high school. What if I've forgotten everything about audition technique? What if my mind totally blanks on tech vocabulary? Most importantly, since I am in intro courses with mostly freshmen, am I going to stick out like a sore thumb against all of these freshmen who knew going into college that this was what they wanted to do?

We all let doubt creep in from time to time. I am a perfectionist and have always been incredibly ambitious, meaning I reach astronomically high and am incredibly hard on myself when I can't be the best of the best. Part of these next few years of college will be letting some of that go, accepting that I am new and constantly learning, and forgiving myself for mistakes that I will inevitably make along the way. There will be many people in my classes who know more than me, but I'm not there to know everything, I'm there to learn. As long as I don't let the doubt creep in enough to scare me out of the drama program, I think all I can do is go in on the first day ready to see what I know and what I don't, and be prepared to learn anything and everything from there.

For all of my terrified freshmen, I'm right there with you, but it's going to be okay. Like I said, one of the best parts of college is that you have the opportunity to learn just about anything. Sit tight, pack your bag the night before, and, I cannot stress this enough, do not accidentally leave the printed copies of the syllabus on your kitchen counter. It happens to the best of us.