Hey freshman,

Welcome ‌to ‌Caltech. Seriously, congrats. You made it through one of the most chaotic admissions gauntlets out there, and now you’re landing on a tiny campus in Pasadena where basically everyone you run into was the standout kid back home. Yes, even the person who can’t get the laundry machines to cooperate. Especially that person. I’m writing this as someone who made it through freshman year and maybe sophomore…still have to finish that one, which somehow feels even more dramatic.

I wish I’d gotten a version of this before I rolled up to Olive Walk with three suitcases and a wildly inflated idea of what “good at math” meant. Keep what helps, toss what doesn’t, and please, please do not skim the sleep part.

Embrace the Honor Code like it’s part of your daily diet

The Honor Code, “No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community,” isn’t some cute slogan they stick on posters. It’s the basic infrastructure. It’s why you’ll have take-home exams. It’s why doors are unlocked. It’s why a professor can ask you to self-report how long you spent on a midterm and actually mean it. It’s also why you can leave a laptop in Red Door and, most of the time, it’ll still be there when you come back. Don’t be the person who violates it.

This place is small, news travels fast, and the Board of Control is not interested in giving you a “learning experience” about consequences. At the same time, learn to appreciate what the Honor Code makes possible. Flexible deadlines, sets where collaboration is normal, a testing culture built on trust, that stuff exists because people protect it. Treat it like a real privilege, because it is.

Pass/Fail First Term Is a Gift. Do Not Squander It.

Fall term and winter term are Pass-Fail. That wasn’t done out of kindness. It’s there because Caltech knows the Ma 1a, Ph 1a, Ch 1a combo can hit like a truck, and you need space to recalibrate. So what does that mean day to day? Stop obsessing over squeezing out a 99 on every set, your job is to learn the material and learn how to function in college.

This is a good time to try a harder track if you’re actually interested. Pick based on curiosity, not pride. Let yourself mess up at least once, then watch how you respond. That recovery skill ends up being more valuable than any single score. And do not drift through Pass/Fail like it’s a vacation. Spring is when grades start to matter, and a lot of people get flattened because they never built routines earlier. Problem sets are meant to be done with other humans. The sets here are hard on purpose.

Not “a bit challenging,” hard. More like, “two hours, no progress, now you’re negotiating with the concept of time,” hard. That isn’t a design flaw, that’s the point. The biggest unforced error I see is freshmen trying to do everything alone in their room because they’re embarrassed they’re stuck. Everyone is stuck. The person who looks like they’re flying through Ph 1 is also staring at problem 4, wondering if they’ve ever understood anything in their life.

Get a set group. Camp out in a lounge. Use the whiteboards. Argue over whether your answer is missing a 2π. This is where the learning actually happens, and it’s also where friendships get made. Some of the best moments I’ve had here were those half-delirious 1 AM sessions that somehow turned into real bonding. One warning, though, don’t be the person who only shows up to copy. Give every problem an honest attempt first. Bring scribbles, not emptiness. People can spot freeloading from the other end of Olive Walk.

Rotation matters, pick your house on purpose

Rotation isn’t just a weird orientation ritual, it’s one of the most important weeks you’ll have. The eight houses, Avery, Blacker, Dabney, Fleming, Lloyd, Page, Ricketts, and Venerable, all feel different in ways that actually show up in daily life. Don’t choose based on reputation, rumors, or whatever your host thinks is “the move.” Choose the place where dinner felt easy. Where the conversations made you want to stay. Where can you picture yourself as a stressed sophomore, then a tired junior, then a senior who somehow knows what’s going on? And if you land somewhere you didn’t expect, give it a real shot. People end up loving houses they swore they’d hate. The stereotypes aren’t the whole story.

And if you end up in a house you didn’t expect — give it a real chance. I’ve watched people fall in love with houses they ranked low. The houses are not the stereotypes.

Office hours are part of the class

If I could time-travel and grab freshman-me by the shoulders, it would be to say this: go to office hours, regularly. Not just the week before exams. Not only when you’re desperate. Make it normal. Caltech’s student-faculty ratio is absurd, the TAs and professors are usually accessible in a way you won’t fully appreciate until you hear how it works elsewhere, so take advantage. Also, office hours teach you how someone who actually understands the material thinks. You’ll get intuition and little mental shortcuts no textbook hands you. And yes, people who know your name tend to write stronger recommendation letters when you need them.

SURF

At some point, you should do a SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship). Many people start after sophomore year, but it’s worth thinking about earlier than that. Research is the core of what Caltech is. Professors are running labs that are genuinely pushing into new territory. Email people. Show up to group meetings if they’re open. Knock on doors, metaphorically or literally. Getting a “no” is fine. Getting a “yes” can mean a paid summer doing real work that changes how you see science. Fall of freshman year is usually too soon to commit, but it’s the perfect time to look around. Read faculty pages. Go to public talks. Notice what actually grabs you beyond surviving the core.

Sleep Is a Class. Treat It That Way.
I know. I know what you’re thinking. “But the set is due at midnight and I have three more problems and—”

Listen. The single biggest predictor of who burns out at Caltech is not intelligence, not preparation, not high school background. It’s sleep deprivation. The all-nighter culture is real, and it is toxic. The people who do best long-term are the ones who learned, often the hard way, that a 6-hour night of sleep beats a 2 AM finish on a problem set by a country mile.

Pro tips from someone who learned the hard way:

• Start sets the day they’re released, not the night before. You’ll have time to be stuck, sleep on it, and come back to it.
• Cap your work at midnight or 1 AM, even if the set isn’t done. Take the partial credit. Sleep.
• Naps are a legitimate productivity tool, not a moral failing.
• Caffeine has diminishing returns. Past a certain point, the Red Bull in your hand is doing nothing.
• The set will still be there in the morning. Your brain will be sharper. I promise.

Get Off Campus Sometimes
Caltech’s campus is small. Really small. After three weeks you will know every shortcut, every vending machine, every weird sculpture. If you don’t actively leave, the walls start closing in.

Pasadena is genuinely a great town. Old Town is a 30-minute walk. The Huntington Library and Gardens are stunning and free with your Caltech ID on certain days or you can create a membership which is very cheap. Take the Gold Line to downtown LA. Hike in the San Gabriels. Drive to the beach. Eat somewhere that isn’t Browne or Red Door. Mental health depends on perspective, and perspective requires occasionally remembering that the world is bigger than Ph 1.

Mental Health: The Stuff Nobody Talks About Until It’s Too Late
Caltech is hard. Not “my AP Calc class was hard” hard. Genuinely, structurally, designed-to-push-you hard. And it pushes everyone. The kid who got a perfect SAT. The IMO medalist. The published-in-Nature-at-17 prodigy. Everyone. This is the part of the article I want you to actually remember.

It is normal to struggle here. It is normal to fail a midterm. It is normal to cry in the library. It is normal to feel, for the first time in your life, like you’re not the smartest person in the room — because you’re not, and neither is anyone else, because there is no smartest person in the room. The room is full of people who are brilliant in different ways.

Use Caltech Counseling Services. It’s free. It’s confidential. It’s good. Going to therapy is not a sign that something is wrong with you — it’s a sign that you’re taking your brain as seriously as you take your problem sets.

Talk to your RAs. Talk to your upperclassmen. Talk to each other. The “everyone is suffering silently and pretending to be fine” thing is a trap. Break it.

The Stuff That Actually Matters
Four years from now, when you’re walking across the stage in a robe, you will not remember your exact grade in Ma 1a. You will remember:

• The 3 AM conversations about consciousness, or whether hot dogs are sandwiches, on your house lounge couch
• The Ditch Day prank that took six weeks to plan
• The professor who told you something that changed how you see the world
• The friend who showed up with food when you were drowning in a final
• The first time a piece of code actually worked, or a derivation actually closed, or an experiment actually replicated, and you felt like a real scientist
• Optimize for those things. The grades will follow if you do the work; the work is more bearable when you have the rest.

You belong here. The admissions office is not in the habit of making mistakes. There will be a week — probably around midterms of fall term — where you will be convinced they made one with you. They didn’t. Push through that week. It gets better. It gets good.

Welcome to Caltech. Don’t forget to look up at the sky sometimes — you’re at one of the best places on Earth to do that.

See you on Olive Walk,

An upperclassman who still has nightmares about Ph 1 but wouldn’t trade it for anything

P.S. — Learn how the laundry machines work in your first week. Don’t be that guy.