Vocabulary plays an important role in the English language learning process. In an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class, students will deal with vocabulary. Thus, students need to master vocabulary so that they can engage in the learning process. The strategies in learning vocabulary are needed as a tool to make the vocabulary learning process easier. The aim of this research was to find out the strategies used by first-year students in learning vocabulary and find out the most effective strategies. This research employed qualitative methodology with standardized open-ended interview to obtain the data from six first-year students in an English language education department as the participants of this research. The researcher chooses the first year students as the participants of this research since the researcher have been observing them. Some of the first year students were lack of vocabulary. Based on the researcher observation, some of the students did not even able to introduce themselves in front of the class because they did not know the proper vocabulary to introduce themselves. It becomes the problem because they are going to learn English language which demands them to understand every context in the learning process. Thus, first-year students need to learn and master the vocabulary. The results of this research found that the first year students employed reading strategies such as reading novels and an online story, writing the words such as writing a vocabulary list, using a dictionary, highlighting words, using the words and asking friends to help them and clarifying their understanding. They did those activities as strategies in learning vocabulary. In addition, they believed that the most effective and used strategies were writing the words, and using the words, also reading novels and an online story.