Meet Mathes

Meet Mathes

CONTACT MATHES

Preferred Pronouns
He/Him/His

Previous Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Champaign County, IL

Major
Management for Engineering and Manufacturing

Involvement
I just transferred during the spring 2021 semester so I'm looking forward to joining clubs and getting more involved on campus in the fall!

How can students contact you?

Students can contact me by completing this form. Feel free to ask me any questions about my experiences as a transfer student at UConn!

 

Tell us about yourself. 

I am a huge fan of both sports and video games, and am often doing one or the other when I’m not studying or in classes. I also enjoy hiking, and am a huge fan of the Baltimore Ravens. My favorite food is the spicy chicken sandwich, and I recently watched and loved both The Office and Breaking Bad. I have 8 cats and 1 dog, all rescues from Egypt, and that number will likely increase in the near future.

 

What is your favorite spot on campus?

My favorite place on campus is the Student Union. Not only are there a bunch of different places to eat in the area, but it’s also super fun to go there and hang out with friends. My last day on campus last semester was spent throwing around the football outside with my friends, and then going to the Student Union and playing paper football with bottle caps with them. The Student Union is a great place to go to destress from classes, hang out with friends, and even meet new people. 

 

What do you love most about being a UConn student?

The thing that I love most about UConn is the community. There are so many people here that you can always find people with the same interests as you. I went in without being good friends with anyone here, but everyone was so welcoming that even though I was new, I felt immediately accepted. Even though I’m a transfer student, I don’t feel like an outsider at all and it was easier than I expected to integrate into friend groups, and teachers are very personable and willing to help out if you put in the effort. It’s a completely different experience from what I originally feared, and I’m excited to continue to meet new people and help new transfer students make the same transition.

 

What is your best advice for a UConn transfer student?

Be bold. The first few days on campus will be some of the most important. It’s critical that you branch out of your comfort zone, and make the effort to introduce yourself to people on your floor and people in your classes. Almost everyone I know is enthusiastic to meet new people and are happy to have someone new knock on their door and introduce themselves. These will be the people you see the most often, and even if you don’t become great friends with all of them, knowing their names and saying hi every time you see them is an awesome feeling. You will also likely end up becoming good friends with some of them, as in my experience the first person I knocked on the door to introduce myself to ended up being one of my best friends. We might not have ever been friends if I didn’t go out of my way to knock on his door, so I encourage any new transfers to do the same.

Contact Mathes

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