My first semester at UMD was certainly a boring but difficult semester. Some classes switched to asynchronous while others remained in the online format. My computer science lectures were asynchronous and it definitely freed up a lot more time in my schedule because I did not have a set lecture time. Although it freed up my time, the unfortunate circumstances of a pandemic still hung over my head and I stayed most, if not all, of my days at home. To remain sane during our current social distancing day and age, I stayed connected with my friends. Through the power of the internet, I used a platform called discord in order to communicate with my friends everyday. This way those who did not attend UMD, and those who did attend UMD stay connected. One benefit of zoom university is that those who do not attend the same university stay connected because we are all at home anyways. Usually, you will find that many friends will fall off after attending two different universities. One class that really caught my off guard was my MATH141 course. I had been a math person my whole life and had not really needed to study for any exams ever. Well, here comes MATH141 with some ridiculous exams, I finally started to study and worked hard to keep my grades up. As a general overview of all my courses, I believe the online format made my semester more difficult.
A hefty portion of the course involved in delving into scientific theory and how to think like a scientist. Although it is in the name, Science and Global Change, I thought the course was going to be predominantly on climate change and the science around global change. It was unexpected, but certainly not surprising that we were being taught how to think like a scientist. Logical fallacies, however, were unexpected and surprising; I had previously learned about logical fallacies in my highschool english classes. I do not think I have ever been taught about logical fallacies in any of my science courses. So it was certainly peculiar to learn about it in SGC. Something I would have liked to learn more in depth about is global change when it refers to tectonic plate movement. I found it fascinating when I learned about earth science in my earlier years and saw how volcanoes and islands were formed. A recent interest of mine, that may be outside the scope of our course, is asteroids in space and them entering our atmosphere. Outside-of-classroom activities were activities I did not even consider at all. With the name Science and Global Change, creating an HTML website was something I was blind-sided by. Later in the semester, we wrote excursion reports and participated in scholars serve which are activities I did not think we would do.
Due to the current pandemic, I am currently at home instead of on campus. My initial plan was to live on campus however after my schedule was finalized, I saw that all my courses were online. Now that I have spent a semester at home, I plan on staying home for other semesters even if the current pandemic dies down. I find it far more comfortable to be home and in a space familiar to me, rather than paying 10k more dollars to spend time in a bed that is too small for me and food that is not that great. This is certainly a different outlook I had before my first semester, in my mind I had planned to return to campus as soon as the pandemic ends. Before, I did not really care about the campus conditions, the food could be bad and the beds could be terrible. However after enduring the mental stress and hardships of my first semester, I would much rather be at home where the food is good and I sleep in my bed. I find that university life is certainly a lot more stressful than I initially thought. I personally like how we are able to personalize our own schedule so we do not have to wake up at ungodly times in the morning. Even if I had the chance I would stay as a university student rather than go back to my highschool days. Although University is difficult, there is a certain amount of enjoyment from learning new things and learning computer science. As a math oriented student I personally like problem solving challenges which is what university life is filled with. At times I would pull my hair out from the stress of university life but in the end when I look back I am proud I pushed through/solved the problem.
Some advice I would like give to future students is to not procrastinate and really study for exams however easy it may seem. As a computer science major when I get a seemingly easy project it takes me hours on end and it would be the death of me if I happened to procrastinate. For exams as well, make sure even if you feel like you know the material in and out make sure you swallow your pride and take a few extra minutes to study. Overall college is a fun experience if you work hard.