Oxford Stories: As New Students Arrive On UM Campus, Others Offer Advice

As a new crop of incoming freshmen arrive on campus and try to find their way around Ole Miss, experienced students say transitioning from living at home to living away at college can be challenging. Most agree that being on your own for the first time is a learning experience.
Brooklyn McHugh, a University of Mississippi freshman, said the relationship she had with her parents changed after moving to Oxford, but they still check her grades. “I’ve definitely grown a lot more on my own,” she said. That means learning how to balance work and fun.
McHugh said it’s been easy to adapt at UM. “You can literally walk up to a complete stranger, and within minutes, I bet you’ve just made a friend,” she said. “That blows my mind because I never thought it would have been this easy – in a college where I knew no one – to meet my absolute best friends.”
University statistics show that, in 2016, the population of undergraduate students rose to more than 20,000. Of these, 57.6 percent are from Mississippi, and the other 42.4 percent are non-Mississippi residents. Students from all over the U.S. attend UM.
“One thing I learned my freshman year is that there is no place like Mississippi,” McHugh said, “so there is no surprise students from all over fall for Ole Miss too.”

UM freshmen, Baily Ann Hector said her transition to college student may have been one of the easiest. “I have so much love for this school and its people that it basically feels more like home than my actual home,” she said.
Hector said Ole Miss has helped her transform into an “independent and driven student” who has as much fun as she possibly can. She said independence is a characteristic you will eventually develop when dealing with professors and students.
“The most important person you have to lean on needs to be yourself,” she said.

Parker Mosely, a UM junior, said when she first came to the university she was skeptical about how her freshmen year would go.
“I had only ever heard great things about Ole Miss, and although I was extremely homesick at first, which took a toll on my grades, I let myself settle in,” Mosley said. “Since then, I have better grades and endless love for this school.”

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By Alexis Elmore. Read more stories like this on OxfordStories.net.