Avi Grant's "Expectations vs. Reality Reflection Essay"
My expectations for college mostly matched the reality I have experienced thus so far. I expected that I wouldn't have as many classes in my day as I did in high school, and I would take different classes each day. This has played itself out in my first semester. The class format is a big change to me though. Classes are delivered differently then I have experienced in the past, since we have lectures on somedays and smaller discussion sections on others. These discussion sections were definitely new to me, but since they are smaller classes they are kind of similar to high school classes, at least in the size. Before college, I had no clue what these classes would be like, but as this semester has gone by they have fit my expectations. Nevertheless, one thing that can be frustrating about college is that there are a ton of assignments and many essays that are very time consuming. Thus it can be very stressful sometimes with the amount of work necessary to complete and it sometimes can be overwhelming. But, overall though, I have really been liking my classes and my professors. I find the classes to be informative, interesting, and thought provoking, and it is fun to learn new topics and explore different disciplines outside of my major.
I did not expect that we would discuss aliens, ancient astronauts, crop circles, the Roswell Incident, giant sea creatures, and other conspiracy theories in this class. That was an interesting and surprising lecture, and it ended up having a good connection to the class as a whole. In SGC, I was suspecting that we would discuss more climate change stuff throughout the class, although we have begun doing so in the last two weeks or so. The outside activities have been just as I expected, more or less. The volunteer service work day was, interesting, to say the least, although it was a great learning experience. Likewise, the excursion to Chesapeake Beach was a lot of fun as well and it was really neat collecting the shark teeth and learning about the past geology of the region.
I lived in Centreville Hall as a first-year University of Maryland student, but due to COVID-19 concerns I am living at home for my sophomore year. I am liking it at UMD. I think daily college life is not nearly as bad as I imagined the living situation would be. For me, the bathroom situation and sharing a group bathroom has not really been an issue as I had thought it would be. The dorm situation has not been nearly as bad or as hard to get used to as I thought it would be.
As advice to future SGC Scholars students, I would recommend not to overstress yourself with challenging courses and heavy workloads, especially early on in your college years. Make sure to take care of your mental health because happiness is incredibly important.
Last modified: 17 December 2020