We Were All Freshmen Once

Julie Wollman, president of Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, enrolled in a spring music class with a group of undergraduates. Her experience helped to connect (and reconnect) her with many of the challenges and concerns that new college students bear:

"I’m really nervous about going to the second class, afraid I’ll be the only one who isn’t any good. I’m not taking it for credit or a grade, but the thought actually crosses my mind that I should skip class; after all, I can offer a good excuse. I am shocked to realize that, 36 years after I started my freshman year of college, being in a simple but challenging class well out of my comfort zone, I am again looking for excuses to miss class. So I go, despite my fear. Before class, waiting for the professor to arrive, I chat with my classmates about how hard it is to breathe right and make a sound come out and I feel less alone in my incompetence."

Read the rest of "Becoming a Freshman, Again" at InsideHigherEducation.com.