Fickle first-day feelings for many Broncs

By Libby D’Orvilliers

Driving by the Moore Library with a trunk full of bedding and clothes, seeing all the tour guides cheering with their cranberry and silver pompoms will never get old. For some reason, seeing all my peers in front of the academic buildings dancing to early 2000s hits as they welcome parents and students to campus on move-in day always gets me excited for the upcoming school year — at least momentarily.

Whether you are a first-year, graduate or transfer student, or anywhere in the middle, it is practically a universal truth that the first day of a new academic school year can bring on a lot of different emotions.

Despite the giddy excitement I feel driving by and “honking [my car horn] for a Bronc,” I am surprised to find that one of my primary feelings this year is, overall, still a sense of nonspecific trepidation.

This year, my worries are more centered around my courseload and time management. With aging as a student and as a Rider community member, I have, naturally, taken on more leadership roles, academic challenges and responsibilities outside of school. While I know that, inevitably, I will be able to manage myself just fine, all the work ahead of me seems daunting.

I do admit that, of course, I am not as scared coming back to school now, compared to freshman year. After all, following only three years of being here, I have finally figured out how a meal exchange works and how to claim my free student ticket to the basketball games.

However, I have yet to figure out how the classroom numbering works in the Fine Arts building still, but that is an issue for another day. 

For the most part, I am now grounded and have found my home-away-from-home here at Rider.

I am certainly more confident in most of the things I was primarily worried about freshman year. I know that I will make friends, that I will find my way around campus just fine, that I will not get too homesick. Yet, I still have stressors. They have just changed over the duration of my time at Rider.

Being nervous and overwhelmed coming into university as a freshman is to be expected. In recognition of this “first-year experience” Rider even has special activities and meetings exclusively to help freshmen get acclimated to campus life. But what about feeling anxious after freshman year? What does one do then without the extra built-in buffers? Is it just a “me thing” or do other non-first-year students feel this way too?

I asked sophomore voice performance major Benjamin Glick how he was feeling going back to school for a second year and he shared that, for the most part, he feels “excited to start school year in a good space” and that he has a lot of things to look forward to now that he is heavily involved on campus, such as being in the upcoming opera with Westminster Choir College and a member of the music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. Glick shared that one of his techniques for keeping any nerves at bay is trying to focus on what he can do, “even if it’s just small things like cleaning my apartment, just to feel more in control.”

In a similar vein to my earlier expressions, fellow senior psychology major Spencer Nelson, who uses he/they pronouns, expressed a similar attitude, noting that he feels “more confident than other years, especially with being a senior,” yet, they added that it can be “nerve-wracking” thinking about what comes after this final year of college, such as applying for graduate school and internships.

It is not only freshmen who feel first-day jitters, I have felt them every year coming back to school. So, my deepest apologies to the first year students who feel very overwhelmed with all the first-week-at-school action, it will always feel a little overwhelming. Rest assured that it doesn’t necessarily get easier, it just gets … different.

That all being said, as any 22-year-old sage would say, one thing I have continuously found helpful for managing the variety of emotions that come with a new academic year, including the first-day-jitters, is keeping in mind that both the best moments and the worst moments will come to pass. Savor each moment and emotion that comes your way and keep on charging forward, Broncs.

Libby D’Orvilliers is a senior psychology major