Mackenzie Taylor is used to being busy. The freshman soccer player was introduced to a whole new world of chaos when she began her career as a college athlete.

“Coming into this, I knew it was going to be busy but I had no idea how hectic it would be,” said Taylor, who is in the middle of her sixth week as a student-athlete. “It’s definitely a lot to balance.”

Taylor is one of just 137 non-redshirt freshman athletes who began their careers at Illinois this fall. The student-athletes have to adjust, not only to the college experience but also to an entirely new level of competition and intensity. Student-athletes have a different experience than regular students because so much of their time is focused on their sport. All the while, other freshmen are off meeting new people in their classes and dorms.

“It’s kind of hard to meet people other than athletes because soccer takes up the bulk of your time, but as soon as the opportunity opens up, I’m open to meeting other people and branching out,” Taylor said.

Not only are the athletes challenged socially, but they also must learn to adapt to a new type of game. In many sports, the rules change from high school to college and in all sports the competition level is much higher in the Big Ten.

“I think it’s more than they expect,” head volleyball coach Kevin Hambly said. “It’s a lot bigger jump than they think. They think 18-and-under club is one step away when in reality it is four or five steps away.”

Most freshmen recruits are typically captains of their team and the best athlete at their school. In college, the faster-paced game also comes with more intense and rigorous competition. Every team in the Big Ten is competitive, unlike in high school where there would be blow-off matches.

“I tell freshmen coming in, it’s sort of like playing their top rival every single day and having to deal with the outcome of that game. That’s a tough transition for any freshman to make,” head soccer coach Janet Rayfield said.

Rayfield thinks the emotional commitment and energy is what hits freshmen the most.

“They all want to be good and they want the program to be good,” she said. “It’s the emotional energy that is hard to balance in terms of having that type of emotional energy but then leaving enough emotional and physical energy to take care of your schoolwork and maybe even have a social life and call mom and dad every once in a while.”

Student-athletes are provided with resources on campus for a smooth transition. Each athlete has an academic counselor, with whom they meet weekly, who helps plan their schedules while on the road.

“Anybody knows when they’re really tired and it’s harder for them to study and harder to pay attention in class,” director of Academic Services Kristin Kane said. “They have to deal with that. They don’t have a choice, they’re students first. They have to be able to balance both of those things. I think that’s a challenge.”

Kane works at managing most of the resources for freshmen, including counseling, tutors, study hours at Irwin Academic Center, among other resources.

“The expectations from professors came as a big surprise,” Taylor said. “You have to do a lot of things on your own as an individual, and that’s a big part of college. That threw me off a bit.”

Taylor said it was hard because she misses most of her Friday classes to travel to away games, but she just needs to talk to teachers ahead of time and make sure she gets notes from classmates.

Kane said a new rule was instituted in the last few years allowing some freshmen to come in the summer before they started school to take courses and start working out with the team.

Freshman volleyball player Liz McMahon took advantage of this opportunity and came to Illinois early.

“I think it helped me a lot just to get the system and to get introduced to college classes,” McMahon said. “I think I expected the worst and coming in early helped.”

Hambly said even if they come early, it takes freshmen the entire year to truly adjust to the college experience.

“I really don’t think that anyone really gets it until they finish their whole freshman year,” Hambly said. “I don’t even mean the first semester, I mean freshman year. Then they start to really understand it.”