Life as a college student was almost exactly how I expected it to be. For many years I have been around many universities and put together a pretty solid picture of what college life would be like. I assumed that it would be a lot of work and time spent studying, but also quality time spent with friends going to a sporting event, playing pool, going bowling, or just hanging out. I expected college to be fun and engaging and so far it has definitely lived up to my expectations. My classes like ENES 100 and CHEM 135 are not nearly as exciting or interesting as classes I will take down the road but they are still fun and are a good introduction to college courses and college level content. Both of those classes have been almost exactly as I expected them to be, with large percentages of the grade coming from presentations or exams and smaller portions from homework. The college stereotype of people not coming to lecture and just attending exams proved to be so true and was especially evident in my Comp Sci Class CMSC 131. I really wish my advisor had mentioned something about a test to skip that class because I probably learned one or two things all semester but it was nice to have a good intro class to Comp Sci as well I guess. My math class might have been my highlight in terms of actually learning. Calc 3 was super interesting and had a number of super applicable concepts to electrical engineering and modeling complex systems. That class was taught in the classic way with a chalkboard in front of a hall of math students, the classic college image. All together these classes were a good intro to college and provided a good easy start to my college career. I do plan to take more classes and definitely more difficult classes next semester. In terms of CPSG 100 it was very interesting. I really did not expect the choices in books to be as interesting as they were and really enjoyed reading the books, especially Sagan. I was thinking that we would explore more solutions to climate change but I am sure that will happen down the road and that we will get there eventually in later semesters. The course content was very interesting though and I did learn a lot about Earth’s history along with a lot about how the climates of the world work. The sections on pseudoscience were very interesting and really helped expand my logical thinking skills. The out of classroom activities are fun and I had a good time on the Metro Scavenger Hunt. On that trip I went to one museum that I have never gone to before, the Asian Art museum, it had so many cool exhibits and explained the history of each piece in the collection. Despite living in Maryland for all of my life I had never visited that museum before. It was really cool to expand my horizons and see something new in DC. The other out of classroom events the STAMP constitution talk was super interesting, I really enjoy that there are events like that around campus happening often. Particularly I have enjoyed attending the ECE colloquium lectures where professors explain their ongoing research projects and sometimes recruit research assistants. In terms of living in Centreville I expected the experience to be much worse than it is. I expected to feel a little cramped in the smaller dorm room but the way I decorated it made it feel really cozy and comfortable instead of too small and cramped. The bathrooms in Centreville were also much nicer than I expected and provided. I would absolutely recommend Centreville as a place to live for sure and it is definitely a very nice place to live. In general my advice for incoming freshmen is to go to any event you may be remotely interested in, even if you don’t like it just try it, there is literally nothing to lose. Also please don’t be afraid to talk to people, because literally everyone is looking for people to talk to, become friends with, and study with, so take advantage of that and talk to everyone you meet because you never know who you will become fast friends with. Other advice I would give in terms of academic success is to make sure you attend every lecture and don’t overload yourself the first semester. It is best to take 15-16 credits and not more because it will make the transition much easier to not be dealing with 18 credit workloads. Finally, I recommend going to every event and talking to people. I am currently doing research with a pHD student right now and I am looking at a research project with faculty next semester. All of these connections I made just by talking to people at engineering welcome events and similar events. In conclusion, talk to everyone you meet, don’t overload yourself with classes, try to find groups of people with similar interests and hang out with them, and don’t stress anything too much and enjoy the transition to college.