By Julia Sarcinelli
FSU admitted 857 students and enrolled a total of 385 new transfer and international students, according to Vice President of Student Enrollment and Development Lorretta Holloway.
Holloway said in an email there are six transfer students and one first-year student with F1 visas. According to internationalstudent.com, an F1 visa is given “to international students who are attending an academic program or English Language Program at a US college or university.”
Exchange students are not included in the admission numbers because they study at the University for only one semester, said Holloway.
Two hundred forty-three first-year students are undeclared, and the most popular majors are
criminology with 67 students and elementary education with 65 students, according to Holloway.
She added the majors with the most transfer students are nursing with 55 and psychology with 33. There are 33 transfer students currently undeclared.
Prospective students are attracted to Framingham State, Holloway said, due to the campus community and size. “It’s big enough to provide a lot of different opportunities for majors, trips, clubs, etc. but small enough that people are going to know each student.”
She added first-year programs like the Foundations course “ensure that each freshman has at least three people – a faculty member, the seminar instructor and a peer mentor – that knows them well” which helps students to get to know others.
Katelyn Hanlon, a senior peer mentor, said, “I personally think it’s helpful because it provides a foundation that they may not have gotten in high school when learning about life on a college campus.
As a peer mentor, we serve as an additional resource to the incoming freshmen and are capable of answering questions that professors may not be able to answer because they don’t have the same perspective as we do as students.”
Holloway advised new students to “pace” themselves. “New students struggle the most with time management,” she said. “There are so many things to do ... that a student can be overwhelmed and find themselves unable to resist going and doing something else other than what they should be doing, like studying for a test or doing homework. October is the perfect time to take stock in what you have been doing.”
Students can try to manage their time by reviewing notes after class, asking questions and taking advantage of a professor’s office hours, she added.
Nicole Stanton, a freshman, said, “I really like my classes that have to do with my major, like my fashion: designer to consumer class.” She added she chose FSU because it was close to her house and it was “cheap.”
Freshman Kerin McCarthy also said she likes the location of FSU. “The campus is really pretty and it is near Route 9, which is convenient.”
Victoria Davis, a freshman, said, FSU is “small, clean and cheap. The class sizes are nice. ... Living here is nice because everyone is involved, and there’s always something going on.”
Holloway said, in her opinion, FSU “means opportunity.” She said opportunities such as the Alternative Spring Break or English to England Trip attract students.
“There are so many moments when I have been uncommonly proud of our students from small things to big. I’d say our students have big hearts and for many, are just looking for their opportunity to share them with their own communities. When the world looks bleak, the students make me hopeful.”