Being a first-year college student involves a lot of anxiety and trepidation. Will I fit in? Will I like my classmates? Will I like my teachers and courses? Will I get lost trying to find my classes?

Three first-year Rutgers students faced those fears in the first few weeks of classes and found a comforting answer: It’s easy to be at home at Rutgers.

Amanda Alcantara, School of Arts and Sciences, New Brunswick; Kristoff Stens, Camden College of Arts and Sciences; and Dolapo (Doly) Damilola Emmanuel, Newark College of Arts and Sciences took time out from their hectic first semester to share some of their first impressions of their respective campuses.

Amanda Alcantara

Hometown: West New York
High School: Memorial High School, West New York
Intended Major: Journalism and Media Studies

Alcantara spent most of her childhood in the Dominican Republic. She tells what it’s like to navigate the different New Brunswick campuses for the first time and expresses her new-found appreciation for her school’s cultural diversity.
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Dolapo (Doly) Damilola Emmanuel

Hometown: Cliffside Park
High School: Cliffside Park High School
Intended Major: Psychology and Journalism

Emmanuel left her close-knit Nigerian-American family in West New York with a good deal of apprehension, only to find new friends and a new home on the Newark Campus.
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Kristoff Stens

Hometown: Camden
High School: Delran High School
Intended major: Biology

Stens, who lived for a time in Spain’s Canary Islands, is already looking to start a parkour club and is hoping his experience at the Camden Campus will change him for the better.
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These three student essayists will be checking back mid-term and at the end of the year to update their Rutgers’ experiences.

– Coleen Dee Berry