Aaron Chen's "Expectations vs. Reality" Reflection Essay

As a first semester freshman close to finishing up my first semester at UMD and in SGC, my experiences in no way matched my expectations coming into college. As the oldest child in my family, I never had any sources too close to me to articulate the true college experience. As a result, I probably knew a lot less about coming into college than some of my friends. Most aspects of college life were much different than I expected, with some being more different than others. For example, my academic and social life were different from what I had imagined, but my housing and extracurricular life were roughly similar to what I had envisioned coming into college.

One big difference in college that I noticed right off the bat was the nature of our classes. In the transition from high school classes to college classes, so many aspects about my classes have changed. The first is the scheduling: I did not know college class scheduling would be as lenient and light as it is. In high school, I had gotten strongly accustomed to the tedious, nonstop, seven hour school day with little breaks in between. However, in college, it did not take long for me to notice that my schedule was much lighter than in high school. Often days I would only have one or two classes, giving me a lot more free time to work on my assignments or catch up on sleep. Another aspect that was much different is most professors’ outlook on their classes. In high school, I would be punished with a detention or a threat of failing a course if I had skipped class, but in college our professors do not even take attendance. In part, I believe that has occurred because our professors know we are old enough to be responsible for our own selves, and not have to force attendance. For the assignments, I honestly thought the workload in college was going to be a lot tougher. However, the work was easily manageable and I was able to balance it well with my social and extracurricular life. I would never have trouble finding time to eat and go out with my friends, and also not have trouble turning in assignments on time.

In SGC, most of the material that we have covered has been in the same ballpark as what I had expected. Maybe I had expected a little more topics concerning global change, but we still covered a large amount of topics about global change nonetheless. The workload in the class is around what I had assumed it to be: not too difficult but with occasional assignments to make sure we are attending class and staying on top of our work. The outside-of-classroom activities in SGC are something I didn't really expect. Coming into college, I had on idea that we could be going on multiple excursions throughout the year and didn't even know about service day. However, I thoroughly enjoyed both excursions I went on: the Service Day trip and the New York AMNH Museum trip. While the service day trip took quite a toll on my physical well-being due to all the work we had to do, it was a great way for me to meet new people in SGC and to make new friends. The New York trip was also extremely informative and enjoyable – I had an interesting time learning about some fossils and planets inside the AMNH.

As for my University life, I think most of University life is what I had imagined, for the most part. One part of my University life that differs drastically from what I had thought was how I was able to start going to the gym a lot. In high school, I never really valued going to the gym and my physical health strongly, but with some of my free time at UMD I started going to the gym a lot more and being more fit. As of the time I am writing this essay, I have actually been consistently going to the gym for the past two weeks, something I thought I would never, ever do in my life. Outside of that aspect of college life, most of what I had imagined became reality, and there were not too many surprises that came at me.

For future SGC freshmen and college freshmen in general: just be yourself and have fun when you transition into your college life. Living on campus away from your family and making countless new friends while also growing more independent will serve you incredibly well in your future, and the experience will be one you will never expect. Don’t say no to anything: give everything you have an opportunity to do a try, and perhaps it will become something you cherish for the rest of your life!

Last modified: 10 December 2021