You’ve just arrived at Hopkins, a place where you’ll likely be spending your next four (or five... or eight... or 12...) years. You’re meeting a lot of new people and getting bombarded with endless information from your First-Year Mentor, Resident Advisor and Ron Daniels. While all this may seem overwhelming at first, you’ll get into the swing of things eventually. Here are a few things that helped me — and might help you — settle in and make Homewood Campus your home.
Figure out where to eat
Hint: It’s not FFC. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve walked into the so-called “Fresh Food” Café (recently renamed Hopkins Cafe) with the hope that the food will be “better than last time,” only to leave as crushed as my entire hometown of Dallas after the Luka Dončić trade. Instead of FFC, I’d strongly recommend the Build Your Own Bowl (BYOB) station at Nolan’s on 33rd or the Levering Taco Kitchen — definitely my comfort dining hall food options.
Off-campus, my food staples are the halal food trucks parked on Charles Street, Orient Express (undeniably better and more affordable than Lao Sze Chuan), Kajiken (although it’s always packed) and University Market & Deli (for late night meals). I’d also recommend going to the 32nd Street Farmers Market on Saturday mornings as a change of pace.
Find some new clubs and hobbies
This is probably common sense, but I can’t emphasize enough how many clubs and activities Hopkins offers – from traditional intramural sports teams to fire spinning. I recently got into bouldering, and that was all thanks to the discovery of the student-run bouldering cave in the Ralph S. O’Connor Recreation Center. Outside of simply being fun, the clubs and hobbies you pick up also help you meet new people and expand your communities.
Find a good study spot
This has been quite hard without an actual library (how do we still not have a library...), but I’d say it’s manageable. Brody really tricked me into thinking I’d be spending substantial time there by being quiet for the first two weeks of the semester, but then it promptly spiraled into chaos — would not recommend. The Annex is practically miles away from on-campus housing, its thermostat is wildly unpredictable and it gets completely packed during finals season — equally suboptimal. I normally study in my lab in Levi Hall. It’s equipped with a whiteboard and comfy chairs and has kept me sane through soul-shattering physics topics, from “simple” harmonic motion to the Maxwell-Ampère Law.
Remember, the most important thing to consider when choosing one (or multiple) study spot(s) is how productive you will ACTUALLY be there, not whether your friends will be there.
Make friends outside of your year
If you’ve successfully completed “Find some new clubs and hobbies,” you should be fine on this front. Upperclassmen and graduate students are usually more than happy to share their wisdom with you: what worked or didn’t work for them, what professors you should take or avoid... In this process, you’ll start to figure out how you want to spend your years here and what opportunities you want to pursue, which makes decisions — and life — much easier.
You’re going to cross paths with countless people, classes, clubs, research experiences, internships, projects and hobbies over the next few days, months and years, so be open to the opportunities that come your way, and you’re bound to end up making Hopkins your home before you know it.
If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to leave you with a bonus tip as a parting gift:
Join The News-Letter!
Being a small part of the University’s century‑long journalistic story has led me to discover so much about new research, developments and events at Hopkins and nationwide, and I’ve met so many great and supportive colleagues through this experience. If you’re at all interested in writing, from news to opinions to science to personal narratives, consider joining us this fall!
Alex Pan is a sophomore majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Dallas, Texas. He is a Science & Technology Editor for The News-Letter.
