Students returning to campus this semester say they wish they had known a few things before they started their first classes at AACC.

Specifically, they said their first few weeks might have gone better if they had known how to navigate the campus, make friends and choose the right classes.

“If you want to make it on time to your class, come 10 minutes early,” Dorothea Wilson, a first-year business administration student, said.

Wilson advised students to arrive even earlier to get a decent parking spot. Some students said they wished they knew how crowded the parking lots were at the beginning of the semester.

“It’s really helpful, because if you go [early] you will know … [the] campuses [and] different locations, like where the library is, for example, or where the bookstore is,” Shirly Castro, a second-year education student, said.

Castro, who admitted she skipped the college’s pre-semester orientations,

recalled getting lost often during her first two weeks on the main campus.
Some students, like third-year creative writing and psychology student Zoë

Sharp, said students can make friends by joining campus clubs.
“You can just show up to any club and you don’t have to go back if it’s not the vibe that you’re looking for,” said Sharp, who is the editor of AACC’s arts journal, Amaranth.

Other students said they wished they hadn’t signed up for online classes.