If post has ANY term attached to it, get the first one only

I ended up solving this. It might not be the smartest way but it works for me.

$terms = get_the_terms($post->ID, $taxonomy);
if(is_array($terms)) { 
        $term = array_shift(array_values($terms)); return $term; 
    } else { $term = "0"; }

The page doesn’t work if $term = 0, but at least it lets the author know they forgot to check one of the boxes ( since it’s required ).