Brockport: The Beginning

Hey everyone my name is Logan, and I come to The College at Brockport from the central NY city of Cortland, which is about two hours from here. I have lived there for most of my life, though I was actually born in Colorado, and didn’t move to Cortland until I was two. Being the oldest child in my family, I am the first to head off to college, leaving behind my parents and two sisters. Though I tend to miss them every so often, college life is amazing. It’s an important step in becoming more independent and discovering who you really are. Being a college freshman is a great experience, something everyone should have in their lifetime.

There were several reasons why I chose to attend Brockport. The campus here is amazing for one. It was one of my favorite from all the schools I visited when I was trying to make my decision. Another reason was all the possibilities here. I’m coming in as an English major, however I have absolutely no idea what I want to do, so I wanted a school with a lot of different choices. Brockport is just such a school. They have the Creative Writing program within the English Department, yet if I wish to switch majors I know I will have many options to pick from. Lastly, Brockport was a good choice for me because of it’s location. My home is about a two and a half hour drive from Brockport. Its not too close and not too far. Just how I wanted it. When I need to go home its not too much of a hassle, yet my mom can’t come and annoy me every time she misses me. Sorry mom.

Anyway, on to life at college. I’ve only been here for two weeks yet it seems like a year has passed already, so much has happened. I was nervous about meeting my roommates but they turned out to be both be good guys. And yes, I did say roommates, as in more than one. I signed up to be tripled in a double because it saved me around $800 this semester. However I got the luck of the draw and was put in McFarlane Hall, which was the recently renovated, so my room is pretty spacious and new. It gets kind of cluttered sometimes because my one roommate, who was going to sleep on the top bunk, decided he was afraid of falling off. So we moved his mattress to the floor and that’s where he’s currently sleeping. It works out though because we made the top bunk into a shelf, and I don’t spend a ton of time in my room anyway.

Aside from worrying about meeting my roommates, I was worried about meeting new people. However, I’ve made so many new friends in my short time here. I knew very few people here when I first arrived, but now I know many people and have made several good friends. I feel like I’ve known them far longer than just two weeks. We’ve already had numerous adventures, and made more than a few good memories. For instance one Saturday a group of friends and I decided to go to Walmart at two in the morning, just because it was late and we had nothing better to do. We piled seven people into my friend’s small car (one person actually had to go in the trunk), and drove to Walmart to have our late night adventure. Or there was the time when I was chilling with friends in the third floor lounge of McFarlane at night, and we looked out into the hall and saw torrents of brightly colored balloons being pushed and kicked through the hallway. Someone had randomly decided to blow up 500 balloons, and then released them. We proceeded to have a late night balloon party in the lounge, with all the students who were still awake. Another enjoyable experience I had with some friends was competing in the McFarlane volleyball tournament. There is a sand volleyball court right outside of McFarlane, and six different teams participated in a friendly, six on six tournament on a beautiful, sunny day. My team didn’t end up winning it all, but we made it to the second round and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

However, college isn’t all about having fun (sadly). Being on my own now I have no nagging parents to tell me when I should do homework, so time management is very important. You need to figure out how to have fun, yet save time for homework and studying. It can be tough sometimes when you want to go hang with friends instead of doing schoolwork, but if you manage your time the right way you should have time for both.

So how has my Brockport experience been so far? Amazing. My first few weeks here have been great, and I have high expectations for the rest of the year. I look forward to making more memories with my newly made friends.

-Logan Marks

Brockport : )

It’s really awesome here at The College at Brockport. Now I know I’m probably a little biased, but really, the campus is beautiful. Definitely one of the prettiest I’ve seen, if not the prettiest. But the amazing campus is not the reason I chose Brockport, only one of the many helpful factors. I chose to attend Brockport for two main reasons. The first being the awesome journalism program they have here. I’ve known I’ve wanted to do some sort of writing since I was really little. Then as I got older I decided I wanted to do journalism. As of now I'm considering a career in the magazine journalism field, but who knows where I’ll end up. That’s actually one of the reason I chose Brockport. They offer so many different classes and programs that can help me to decide exactly what kind of journalism I’m interested most in. Brockport has everything from newspaper and magazine journalism to broadcast journalism. So for me, that’s perfect. I’ll get to explore a little, experience some new things to see exactly what it is I want to do. Which, to me, is exactly what college should be about. The second reason that I chose Brockport was for the tennis team here. I’ve been playing tennis since about 7th grade. Having tried practically all sports at one time or another, I can honestly say tennis beats them all. No offense to any other sports… I do love the occasional softball and soccer game as well, but tennis pretty much kicks butt. When making that super important decision on exactly what college I should go to, tennis played a huge part. I knew I wanted to play in college, but as all other athletes know, a lot of factors go into choosing. The team, the coach, the talent, all really important things to consider. But after all that debating I chose to play at Brockport, obviously. My coach, Ed Gonzalez, is awesome and all the girls on my team are great. We just had our first match a few days ago, and although we lost it was still really good. Joining the tennis team was great; it practically gave me an instant group of friends who I love being with. Plus, being an athlete I got to move into the dorms a week early, so I got to choose my side of the room first. I can say already though, that it’s a lot of work being on a sports team and having classes. Between practices, games and then classes and work, I sometimes find myself wondering where the day went. But it’s something I want to do, so I know I’ll make it work.
The first two weeks here went by really fast. The first week for me was actually just pre season. Tennis, tennis, tennis and then… oh yeah, more tennis! But I did love almost every second of it. Then came Welcome Weekend. The people who put on the Welcome Weekend activities really did a fine job. Clearly a lot of work and effort was put into making this weekend such a success. The College filled the weekend with activity after activity. Along with all those activities came even more hilarious ice breakers. I mean, who doesn’t love super awkward ice breakers that require you to hug random freshman? Or actually I think the best one was when we all had to sit on each other. Yes, literally sit on each other. Thank you, Saturday's Playfair! All jokes aside however, those awkward ice breakers really do pay off. It’s a crazy, silly and sort of stupid way to get to talk to people. During that one weekend, I feel like I met practically every freshman. But after that weekend, the fun ended. Haha, sorta. Really, just classes began. I know everyone says, “Ooh College the workload is so hard blah blah”. In all honesty, those people are right. The workload already is a lot. Yet, it’s also nothing that so far, I can’t handle. One thing that everyone will stress to you that’s so true: it’s honestly all about time management. Don’t spend six hours on face book when you should be studying for Sociology!
So all in all college is a success! So far that is. But really, I don’t anticipate my love for Brockport going away anytime soon. This is an awesome place that I look forward to being at for the next four years. So, until next time!

-Carolyn

Intro

Ah, so I’m finally here, The College at Brockport. It feels good to finally be able to say the sentence “I’m a college student”. My names Carolyn McMenemon and clearly, I’m a freshman here at Brockport. I’m from a small town way downstate, Pine Bush, New York. Most people have never heard of it, although it is pretty well known for UFO sightings to some people. Sorry, but I’ve never seen one. It’s about five hours from Brockport, yeah I know…long car ride and pretty far from home. Which, is kind of hard considering that I am really close to my family. I live with my parents and my younger sister Kellie, whose 16. Then I have an older sister Marybeth whose 24 but lives in Manhattan. Yeah, being the middle child rocks. Leaving home was a very odd experience. Aside from the normal school field trips and overnight sleepovers, I had never been away from my family for an extended period of time. But there I was, leaving my family and friends for about two and half months. Which, doesn’t seem like that long, but if you think about it... it sort of is. But, it all ended up being okay. After a few tearful goodbyes and strict instructions from my mother to call in a day or two, I was on my own. Officially a freshman college student at The College at Brockport. Which is both exciting...and terrifying.

-Carolyn