Category: Featured Posts

Every other week, the My First Year blog will be sharing stories of faculty so that our freshman students can get to know their professors a bit better and hear some of their advice for new students.

Samantha Stobert, Director of First Year Experience

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it was thirty years ago that I shouldered my backpack and headed out for my very first day at the University of Vermont. When I look back on that overwhelming day, I smile to think that I am now the director of First Year Experience, helping freshmen successfully transition into their own first year of college! On the first day of each new year here at the Mount, I relive how nervous – even terrified! – I felt heading through the throng of other students to my first college class ever. Don’t get me wrong – it was fun, too. Starting college was cause for celebration, just like it is here at the Mount, and all kinds of people were rallying to make me feel comfortable and happy about being there. But in a way, this made me feel guilty for not being as happy as it seemed I should be. In my case, coming from a small, rural town with a tiny high school to a large university made me feel like I was disappearing into a crowd. Everyone seemed so much more sophisticated and sure of themselves than me. To add to my anxiety, I was a nerd who put a lot of pressure on myself to do well in school, and when I got a look at my first syllabus, I could just tell that the game was going to be different at college. Continue Reading