On August 24th, 2023, when I first walked onto the second floor of Centreville Hall, I had a lot of expectations for what the next few months would entail. I’d seen and heard a lot about college life from friends, mentors, family, and even popular media, so I thought I had it all figured out. However, reflecting back on my first semester of college, I am realizing that despite my numerous sources of information on the undergraduate experience, I barely half knew what was coming.
Let’s start with the (supposedly) primary reason most of us attend university: classes. This should’ve been the most obvious one. Classes are meant to be the backbone of the college experience, and I came to realize that they lived up much more than in high school. In high school, classes were generally shorter and had both a lot more lenience in grading and a lot more rigidity in structure. High school typically had more frequent interactive activities, but also had many more small, short-term assignments with deadlines usually less than 2 days after the assignment was handed out. Furthermore, with the spoon feeding that occurred in high school, it didn’t always feel like the point of classes was to learn the course content. It felt like a lot of busy work and maybe a chance to interact with friends, but with learning not always given as much importance. Perhaps the biggest difference in classes between my expectations from high school and my experiences in college is that in high school, we were still largely treated like children. Now, as an undergraduate, the professors are not responsible for us the way our high school teachers were. Undergraduate courses require more independence and drive from the individual to excel in. The assignments have changed from short-term busy work to long, more elaborate and difficult projects which must be self-paced. The majority of the grade takes into no account effort or attendance or small collaborative assignments. Instead, the grade is mostly determined by the scores on one or multiple midterms and a final exam. Additionally, my undergraduate classes vary greatly in their structure. Though all of them incorporate some sort of slideshow or blackboard lecture, there is a huge range of class sizes, teaching styles, and degree of interactivity from class to class. Some professors will lecture for an hour and a half, not allowing students to ask questions, and then leave. Others will not only allow student questions, but also regularly ask questions to the students, change the topic or course of the lecture based on student questions, and put out extra material specifically for students. Overall, college courses have very different structure, delivery, and assignments than high school courses.
One of the courses that particularly subverted my expectations was this class, CPSG100. This is my first time being part of such a program, so I was not sure exactly what to expect. I did end up making a plethora of assumptions regarding the course content, structure, and assignments. Given that the course is, by name, a colloquium on science and global change, I expected the course to be entirely about climate change, the evidence supporting it, and what we can do to help mitigate the crisis. So, I was surprised and intrigued to discover how much of the course was about the definition of science, the scientific method, and distinguishing between science and pseudoscience. I was also surprised that we still have not extensively discussed direct ways to combat climate change or many of the current policies regulating the climate around the world. Although there were many tie-ins to climate change, in retrospect the primary theme of this course was learning to think critically and scientifically. Finally, the greatest surprise about this course was the out of classroom experience. I could not have possibly enjoyed this course’s excursions and other out of classroom activities more. I particularly enjoyed the metro scavenger hunt trip to DC, but my favorite out of classroom experience was my chosen excursion: the trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Dr. Holtz and Dr. Merck both gave fascinating and in-depth tours of their halls, discussing how the contents of the halls tied into different aspects of anatomy and physiology, physics, history, and more. Additionally, I loved being able to interact with other members of SGC around New York City. All in all, this course and the program as a whole has been an amazing and entirely new experience.
Beyond courses, my life as an undergraduate living on campus is much different from my life just a few months ago. I, of course, knew that not living with my family would make a difference. However, the level of freedom did surprise me. As an undergraduate, I am able to walk to any place on campus I wish, at almost any time I wish. Additionally, I can easily get involved in an unprecedented number of organizations or activities within easy walking distance from my classes or residence hall. This, in particular, coupled with the ability to study or spend time in such a wide variety of locations, highlights the primary surprise I experienced as an undergraduate. I did not realize how easy it would be to spend time with my friends, join clubs, or in general get out of the dorm room and do things other than just studying all day.
All in all, so much of my college experience took me by surprise. There are so many things I’ve learned about it so far, and many of them line up with some advice I was given right before moving in. This piece of advice is one I am extremely grateful that I followed, and it is the same advice I would give to future students, not only those entering SGC but those entering college in general: don’t let freshman year turn into thirteenth grade. Don’t stay in your room and study all day and do nothing else. Get out of your comfort zone, get involved in some of the incredible activities, organizations, and opportunities around campus, keep an open mind, and try to make the best of every day. That’s how I’ve been trying to go about my undergraduate career, and I look forward to continuing to do so over the next few years.