Everything You Need to Know About College | NC State University!
Today I am going to be sharing all of the need-to-know details about college! I am a junior in Fashion Textile Management at NC State University, so I will be giving the NC State perspective, but I would imagine that the topics I am covering are pretty universal. Even if things are a little different at your college, this will hopefully still give future college students an idea of how things will be!
Meal Plans
College food. Is it better than the typical school lunch? Sometimes. But like everything else, it gets old after a while. The best thing about college food: you pay for it with a meal plan and do not have to use your own money! (I mean, you paid for the meal plan, but you get what I mean)
You will use your Studen ID, that they will probably give you at Freshman Orientation, to purchase your meals. You will most likely be working with Dining Hall Swipes, Restaurant Swipes, and Dining Dollars. There will probably be a handful of plans to choose from with varying sizes and made up of different types of swipes. The Dining Hall swipes are for the dining halls, of course. The dining halls are kind of like a lunch line in high school or a buffet restaurant! They put out tons of options for the day and it changes almost every day. The restaurant swipes are for the food court areas rather than the dining halls. At NC State we have a food court in Talley Student Center that has Tuffy’s, a burger and chicken tender place, Los Lobos, a Mexican place similar to Chipotle, a pizza place, Jason’s Deli, Starbucks, Port City Java, a coffee place we have all over campus, and One Earth, a restaurant with food from around the world. In the atrium beside DH Hill Library, we have Chick-fil-A, SmoothieU, a wrap place, a pizza and pasta place, and a Chinese place. My favorites are Starbucks and Chick-fil-A. Dining dollars can be used if you purchase something over a meal swipe cost, which is about $7.25, or if you are out of meal swipes or just want to purchase something without using a swipe.
My Freshman year at NC State I had the “Everyday Plan” which gave me unlimited Dining Hall Swipes, 12 Restuarant swipes per week, and $100 in Dining Dollars. This is a great plan for Freshman that spend most of their time on campus. Now that I am living in an apartment, I have a smaller plan that only has about 150 swipes that can be used as restaurant swipes or dining hall swipes, with no limitations, and $100 dining dollars. NC State gives you the opportunity to change your meal plan up until late September so if you track what you’re eating and find that you are not going to use your entire meal plan, you can change it. I’m sure not every college has the exact same system, but hopefully, this will give you a better idea of how things work.
At NC State we have an app called Tapingo that I HIGHLY recommend you download! It is so convenient for grabbing food on the way to class because you can order it on your phone and pick it up on the way!
Housing
Housing can be one of the most exciting, but also scariest things about college. It’s your first time living all on your own, most likely in a new city, possibly with someone you’ve never met before.
There are several different options for your new home, but the most common options are hall-style dorms and suite-style dorms. Hall-style is just how you imagine it; a long hall filled with dorms and a communal bathroom at the end. If you go to NC State and are in Exploratory Studies (undecided), you are required to live in the Tucker-Owen hall-style dorms. I have no idea why, but that’s how it is. I lived in Carroll, a suite-style tri-tower in the center of campus during my freshman year. The suite-style had four suites on each floor, each suite composed of five rooms and one bathroom.
There are three options for finding a roommate: choose someone you already know, find someone you don’t know but think you want to room with or go for a complete random. Whenever I was trying to find a roommate I joined a Facebook group NC State had full of other freshman looking for roommates! We then each put up a little post about ourselves and then we could message each other if we thought it would be a good fit!
After I found my roommate, we submitted our room request to be together and then put our top three choices for residence halls. NC State prioritizes your roommate choice, so you will most likely get who you asked for, but you might have your second or third choice room.
Transportation
If you’re going to be on a large campus, you may have to think about your transportation options. We have tons of lime bikes and birds that are great for navigating one campus, but we also have another campus that you would most likely have to take the bus to get to. Only the engineering and textile students really have to worry about buses at State, but it may be a good resource for you even if you do not need to go to Centennial Campus because it can also take you places like Food Lion! The bus system is completely free and open to the public so you can just hop on and go! There is an app called Tranloc or Rider that I recommend you download to see the bus routes, how far away they are from your stop, and how long it will take you to get to your destination.
Enrolling for Classes
Enrolling for classes can be COMPETITIVE. Time slots for enrollment open based on how many credit hours you have. Things fill up quickly, so be prepared to have to change your schedule and possibly take 8ams. If you have questions or concerns about your schedule, I recommend talking to your advisor to make sure you are still on track and that classes you may be worried about are mandatory! I had to run to my advisor this past semester after I attempted to enroll and could not get into any of the classes I wanted. Not only do classes fill up, but parking passes and rooms for upperclassmen can also be super competitive, so make sure you are on it the day of your time slot!
Internships
I wanted to mention internships because having one in college is a great opportunity to get experience at a time in life when you are not required to already have experience in order to get that experience if you know what I mean. I had an internship this summer and I talked all about how I got it in a video, wrote about it in weekly recaps on the blog, and plan to recap the whole thing on my YouTube Channel soon so make sure to check it out if you are interested! I recommend you start looking for internships your sophomore year so you can get as much experience as possible! You can get class credit for your internship as well!
Study Abroad
I will be talking more and more about study abroad this upcoming year because I am actually hoping to study abroad this spring! I do not want to spill all the beans yet, but I want those of you going into college to consider study abroad and do research on it because it is an amazing opportunity to travel the world without having to put your life on hold. Also, study abroad typically costs just as much as college, or even less, so now is the time.
