Stepping onto any campus and having an immediate impact is tough enough.
Doing it 3,000 miles from where you began your college career is even harder.
And guiding a struggling pitching staff at the same time is a feat that only a select few could accomplish.
But Penn junior Josh Corn -- a transfer from Stanford who did not play his freshman year and was forced by NCAA rules to sit out all of last year -- has done all of that and more on a team that boasts a middling 10-25 record.
"We knew catching was going to be thin this year," head baseball coach John Cole said. "He has really surpassed our expectations."
Unlike the rest of the baseball team, Cole had actually seen Corn play before the 2006 season. While still the head coach at Division III-Rowan, Cole had a chance to watch Corn play as a highly touted recruit out of Northern Highlands high school in New Jersey.
He liked what he saw then, but now he has a chance to develop that talent.
"He's got some tools," Cole said, citing arm strength, quickness, and leadership ability as some of Corn's most important attributes.
The latter has likely taken on an added significance this year, as Corn has had to manage a pitching staff saddled with injury, inconsistency and a lack of depth.
The staff was shorthanded from the beginning due to the loss of sophomores Nick Francona and Andy Console to injury and has struggled to nail down a consistent starting rotation, even calling on first baseman Sean Abate to eat significant innings.
The result has been an Ivy League-worst 8.5 earned-run average and a whopping 428 hits surrendered in just under 283 innings.
Cole, though, thinks that his catcher's presence has gone a long way toward keeping things under control on the field, even when the pitchers seem to run out of gas.
"He's a pretty even-keeled guy," Cole said. "He never gets too high or too low."
But like a leader, Corn himself shies away from taking the credit.
"I'm just having a great time playing," he said. "Coach Cole has put a great system in, and it's not too hard for me to step in and guide the team in the way that he wants it to be guided."
"I just try to do all the little things; I try to really emphasize where we want it pitched."
But even when the ball doesn't end up where he wants it, Corn ensures that the team never loses sight of the larger goal.
"You can't really get down," he said. "You can't really dwell on failures on the mound."
Corn, though, has helped to remedy some of those failures by himself. He is one of the strongest defensive presences on the team, despite having to constantly deal with baserunners from the backstop position. Corn has committed just two errors all year and has thrown out an astonishing 25 out of 55 runners who have tried to steal on him.
He has also been one of the most productive hitters on the squad this year, posting a team-high .353 batting average and a second-best .521 slugging percentage. And he shows a good eye for a power hitter, being one of only three Penn starters who gets walked more often than he strikes out.
Along with pitcher/first baseman Sean Abate, Corn forms what he calls a "bridge" between the pitching staff and the position players.
And that coherence has not just aided the team in a year when it has been overmatched in terms of talent and undergoing a transition to a new coach -- it also can prepare them for a more hopeful future.
"A lot of us are pretty young on the team," he said. "We're looking ahead to next year, [but] at the same time, we want to finish this year well."
There may be good reason for him to look ahead to next year, though. Not only will the team get back two fresh arms in Francona and Console, but five out of the six members of Cole's first recruiting class are pitchers.
Then, perhaps Corn's composure on the field won't be needed quite so much.
