Reflection on Freshman Year

A Note to All College Students

4 min readJun 19, 2016

I am writing this a month or so removed from wrapping up my freshman year at Washington University in St. Louis. I am happy to say that it was an awesome year! I had a ton of fun and learned a lot. And here are my thoughts…

College is kind of a weird time. Especially freshman year. For me, it had consisted of leaving all that I had known in the comfort of Arizona to attend a school halfway across the country. Prior to entering the year, I had known a grand total of one other person at the school. Call it a blank slate — yes, this was an opportunity to reprioritize and do things on my own. There are few times in life where you get to even try to do this, a rare opportunity.

Don’t mess this one up Jordan.

Definitely noted that advice.

A lot changes when you go to college. As I’ve mentioned before, freedom is a very powerful thing. It becomes your responsibility, as an individual, to use your freedom as you choose. Those that make the most out of their 24 hours tend to be happier :) (which is the most important). I wanted to explain that making the most is not universally understood for how I intend — make the most does not mean the most in quantity, but rather deliver the most utility — the most happiness! For some, that requires doing a lot but for others it could mean watching Netflix all day. Neither is better, just different.

But as I was saying, with some extra time, college students are left on their own to make decisions. Every decision in life has a consequence (good or bad). And that is what, again, separates individuals from one another.

So when I first started, I made the cognizant decision to push myself out of my comfort zone. I did that two ways — I tried to meet as many people as I could (especially those that were out of my league) and I tried to start as many things that I could.

Meeting As Many People As I Could

This is pretty generic advice that people give college students. To “make the most out of your four years” and meet a ton of people. Generic does not really help Instead, take this actionable analysis of what I did and learn from it.

Meeting people is actually a science. You have to be purposeful and go out of your way to engage with people.

And that is what I did. I started with people the same age as me in my class. But that is only the beginning. If you really want to accelerate your growth and learn a fuck ton, that will not be enough. You have to engage with wayyy more people. A way larger diversity of thoughts and opinions is what I needed.

So I built an excel sheet and began contacting people (all over the world) telling them that I wanted to talk and literally learn from them.

I contacted thousands of people this year. And yes, not everyone got back to me. In fact most didn’t.

But to those who did — thank you — I learned more than I ever could have hoped and accomplished my goal. Plus, it’s one of my passions to learn things I should not be learning at my “age.”Learn whatever you want whenever you want.

I am going to be publishing an “actionable guide” to doing meeting as many people as you can .this tomorrow! stay tuned.

Starting Things

Another purposeful decision I made was that I wanted to highlight my mindset of building and starting.

Throughout the year I made a strong effort to link with people and put ideas into reality. I truly believe that the best way to learn is to do. And I finally found my fit (for now) with a product I publish every single day — a fresh blog post (right here)!