No matter the environment you originally call home, welcome to Hopkins! You’ll soon make your transition from the comfort of your own home to the bustling atmosphere of Charles Village and the Homewood campus. Here are a few (hopefully) helpful points about making campus your new home, coming from someone who was completely unfamiliar with Baltimore before freshman year.
At the heart of settling into your new environment is being familiar with that environment itself. Strolling around while on the phone with a family member back home, walking into different buildings and finding restrooms, charting your path to class during orientation week — these are all things you can do to not only get outside but also familiarize yourself with campus spaces. Familiarity goes hand in hand with comfort. During orientation week, your First-Year Mentors will help guide you around campus too. I recommend checking out Bloomberg Hall, Gilman Hall and “The Stuce,” our new student center.
For food on campus, it’s best that you try out every dining hall as soon as possible. Personally, I believe that Hopkins Café serves the best food because it has tried-and-true stations like the sandwich bar. Nolan’s on 33rd is great for its build-your-own-bowls and, in my opinion, pudding cups and cookies. Levering Kitchens is a food-court style hall with different food stalls, and it is a great place to have a meal in between study sessions due to its proximity to Brody and Gilman Hall.
Speaking of, you should also get comfortable with some study spots… you’ll need them. There are the classics, such as the Brody Reading Room and the MSE Library Annex, which are great for finals season or Tuesday night homework sessions, but I also suggest finding some rather uncommon places. This is great not only to change your environment, which you may find helps with productivity, but also to take advantage of all the areas that Hopkins provides for its students. You can check out an empty seminar-style classroom in Gilman Hall, the upstairs floor of Bloomberg or even the tables in Malone Hall. A personal favorite of mine is finding an empty classroom and setting up shop for the duration of my studying.
In terms of the social scene, while Hopkins is not known for being the most lively, rah-rah environment, there are more than enough outlets for an actual social life. Greek life is a path many, such as myself, take, but it is certainly not the only way to find a community. It’s extremely important that you make an effort to meet people and join different groups, especially during the first few months of freshman year. This is how friend groups form and commitments begin. If research is your strong suit, reach out to professors and labs to see if they’ll take you on early. For those of you who go to the gym, create a schedule, stick to it and try your best to do so even when course loads ramp up.
These are rather general suggestions that I’ve been describing above and can (relatively) be said about pretty much any campus. So, I’ll provide some of my own advice on how to live on the Homewood campus and want to call it your home. First, immediately try to leave your dorm at the beginning of your first semester — the freshman dorms aren’t the best environment, anyway. Go outside, do work in different places and hang out with some people you’ve met during orientation week. Hopkins can feel isolating at times with such a competitive environment, especially if you’re pre-med, but once you find places you are comfortable in with other students who you enjoy being around, the grind is a lot more friendly. Second, find a routine with your meals. This seems obvious, but once midterms begin on their usual schedule and courses and extracurriculars become more demanding, you should be steady with your meal times. After the first few weeks of classes, regiment a meal routine — bonus points if it’s at different dining halls. Third, meet as many people as you can, truly. In making campus your home, it's crucial that you hope to find a community that you can ride with for your time on Homewood.
Shaan Udani is a junior majoring in Public Health Studies from Morris Plains, N.J. He is a Science and Technology Editor for The News-Letter.
