One of the things that helped me adjust to college was getting involved in activities. I'm one of those people who are really shy and have difficulty branching outside of my comfort zone but once I am comfortable I am absolutely crazy. I initially found it difficult to figure out where I fit in. I went to the involvement fair which happens first week of classes and explored there a bit. The involvement fair has all sorts of clubs represented from clubs with specific interests to religious clubs to groups for almost every major to volunteer opportunities. In high school I was a member of our Health Club and helped coordinate the blood drives my Junior and Senior years. At the fair I found the Student Red Cross Club (SRCC) and decided I would check it out. I started going to the meetings and met some of the officers and I started volunteering at the Blood Drives around campus. Initially I was always sent out as a recruiter but as the group got to know me I moved to other positions. Now I am an On Site Coordinator (OSC) which means that I organize the volunteers and make sure that the drive has enough donors to hit hourly and daily goals. My freshman fall I received my first leadership position of college as a captain for the PSU-MSU Blood Donor Challenge which you will hear more about during fall semester. Another club member and I were responsible for designing and assembling scoreboards (giant posters) to be put around campus for the duration of the Challenge. We also had to coordinate with the locations and organized a team of volunteers to update the scoreboard. This experience has been something that I have used during interviews and since I worked closely with our club advisor she was able to write recommendation letters for me when it came to applying for other leadership positions and jobs. I have also assumed more leadership positions within the club and made a lot of friends outside of engineering.
No matter what you are interested in, Penn State probably has a club for it. Some examples that I know the WEPO 2011 leadership team are involved with include a Capella groups, major related professional societies (ASME, AIChE, etc.), club sports, religious groups, volunteering, and sororities. All of us love to talk about what we are involved in and get new students involved. You can also find clubs and their websites/contact info here.
My piece of advice for incoming freshmen is always to get involved and branch outside of your comfort zone and engineering. You don't have to do this immediately (I really wasn't involved in much more than the SRCC for my first year), but it will allow you to become an effective time manager as well as give you leadership opportunities and things to talk about during an interview. Perhaps the most important thing is that you will meet friends who share a common interest and who will be able to help you through anything.
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