HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — Northern Kentucky University (NKU) Junior Hannah Miller said she remembers transitioning from high school to her freshman year in college. It was a big change.

“College is a whole new ballgame that a lot of students don’t quite see coming,” she said.

Miller said she went through a phase of navigating the campus, learning how to study, and how to put herself out there to make friends.

She said she received a lot of help from an adviser, and a non-freshman student on campus called a “peer coach.”

Miller was among many students and administrators on NKU’s campus cutting the ribbon on a first-year student success hub Thursday afternoon. Administrators said the center puts many resources under one roof for students.

“We’ve been working really diligently over the past year to get this up and running. We hired 11 new advisers so we have 17 staff total in the hub,” said Gannon Tagher, assistant vice provost for advising and first-year experience.

A challenge many freshmen face is trying to get a lay of the land. Miller said the new hub is a convenience for those first-year students trying to navigate their new world.

“Your first year, you are advised in this center. You have resources in this center. It’s going to be really clear cut and take a lot of the stress off of our first-year students. They don’t have to quite navigate as much—they know this is one spot I can go and I know I’m going to be helped,” she said.

Miller herself has come full circle and is now a peer coach to some freshmen on campus.

She said that’s always a fun thing to see—when those first-year students get the help and resources and turn around and do the same for those coming in the following years.

“There’s a couple of people joining our student staff next year who have been peer coached by our peer coaches, so it’s nice seeing that full circle,” she said.