Jewish Students Share Advice for Navigating College Life with Confidence
A first-year student’s journey at college begins before they ever set foot on campus. In the weeks leading up to the first semester, incoming students imagine the friendships they’ll build, the communities they’ll join, and the experiences that will shape who they become. It’s an exciting moment, but it’s also one filled with the unknown.
To help incoming Jewish students take those first steps with confidence, Hillel International hosted “Incoming First Years: Know Before You Go,” the latest session in the Virtual College Prep Series, where Jewish college seniors shared the advice they wished they’d heard before arriving on campus, from how to make friends and settle into dorm life to finding Jewish community from day one, and focusing on what really matters during the first weeks of college.
Setting the stage for the session, Michael Kagan, Hillel International’s senior director of student experience and engagement, encouraged students to think beyond the logistics of college life.
“Tonight is about something just as important as what goes into your duffel bag,” he said. “It’s feeling ready, confident, and connected before you ever even put your first foot on campus.”
The conversation brought together three members of Hillel International’s Student Cabinet: Zoey Natkin of the University of Oregon; Co-Chair of the Student Cabinet Ben Small of the University of Pennsylvania; and Courtney Saxe of the University of Arizona. Together, they offered the kind of honest, practical advice they wished someone had shared with them: how to meet people, settle into campus life, find Jewish community from day one, and head into college with confidence.
One of the simplest suggestions was also one of the most memorable: Leave your dorm room door open in those beginning weeks.
“The people who live on your floor are the first people you should turn to to make new friends,” said Small. “Everyone is anxious. Everyone is super friendly in the first couple weeks of school. And the people who live next to you are the best people to make friends.”
Natkin agreed, reminding incoming students that while everyone arrives with different backgrounds, they’re all navigating the same transition together.
“Everyone is in the same boat,” she said. “Everyone wants to meet new people and build a community in their dorm building and on their college campus, so don’t be afraid to say ‘hi,’ reach out, introduce yourself.”
The panelists encouraged students to embrace Welcome Week and move-in activities, even if they feel unfamiliar at first. Those first few days, they explained, are when friendships begin, clubs recruit new members, and students discover the communities that will shape the rest of their college experience.
For Jewish students, that includes Hillel.
Whether it’s attending a welcome event, sharing a Shabbat meal, or simply stopping by the building between classes, the panelists encouraged incoming students to connect with their campus Hillel early. Those relationships, they said, often become a source of friendship, support, and belonging long after the excitement of move-in week fades.
Natkin knows firsthand how meaningful that community can be. Her first week of college coincided with the October 7th attacks, and she arrived on campus not knowing where she would be able to find friends. Walking into Hillel, she said, immediately changed that.
“I was able to go to Hillel without knowing anyone and feel so welcome immediately,” she recalled. “It was a place where I could be myself.”
Looking back on her own college experience, Saxe said the relationships she built during her first weeks on campus became some of the most enduring of her college years.
“The friendships and the relationships that you gain through college really will stay with you,” she said, recalling that she and the friends she met in her residence hall still reunite every summer.
The conversation also covered the practical side of starting college.
Small recommended taking a practice run to your classrooms before the semester begins, even locating the nearest bathrooms, to ease first-day nerves. Saxe encouraged students to arrive early to class, introduce themselves to the person sitting nearby, and remember that everyone else is hoping to make friends, too.
When it came to packing, the advice was honest and refreshing. Bring photos from home. Pack something comforting, whether that’s a favorite pillow, a well-loved book, or, in Saxe’s case, a weighted dinosaur plush that quickly became a conversation starter in her residence hall.
The program concluded with a reflection from Samantha Brody Marks, director of Jewish student life at Brandeis University Hillel, who reminded students that while beginning college comes with a lot of uncertainty, they won’t be taking that step alone.
“You don’t know which people you’ll be spending hours with in the library, the professors, the mentors, and you don’t really know what things are going to fill your time,” Brody Marks said. “Starting college is taking a leap into the unknown.”
Drawing on the story from the Torah of the Jewish people preparing to enter the Land of Israel, she encouraged students to embrace both the unfamiliarity and the opportunity of the moment.
“No one is an expert at being a freshman in college,” she said. “Everyone that you’re meeting… it’s their first college class, too.” And even when those first days feel overwhelming, she reminded students of the message at the heart of the evening: “You have a community at Hillel.”