What I expected of my University courses is pretty much how they were. I had just pictured me having a class in a big lecture room with about 100-200 students and the one professor all the way at the bottom. I expected the structure to be just purely lectures and students on their laptops jogging down the notes. The professors give you their syllabi, but they do not really mention it much after. The one thing that I did not expect of University courses was that they were both the lecture portion but also a discussion portion. I like having discussion especially for my MATH140 (Calculus I) class. The nature of my classes is pretty chill and laid-back; there is not a lot of interaction between the professor and the students like I imagined.
At first, I did not expect CPSG100 to have a lecture about academic integrity. We went over the different types of cheating and what it is like to be put on trial. Now thinking about it, it makes sense for the Scholars program to teach its members about these important University policies. I also did not expect for us to have a lecture on logical fallacies because I did not see its connection to global climate change. A topic that we did not explore that I was expecting was wildfires especially with what is happening in California and when the Amazon Rainforest was on fire. The outside-of-classroom activities are a lot more unique and entertaining than I imagined. They are not just simple arts and crafts activities. One time before they were giving out succulents and I love succulents!
University Life, at least for me, is really laid-back. I imagined myself going to parties every weekend and always being on Route One. I guess I thought I would be much more energetic than what I really am. With all of this independence, I found out that I actually enjoy being alone and just lying in my dorm watching movies. As far as the sports aspect, it is everything that I imagined. I absolutely love going to the football, basketball, volleyball, soccer etc. games. I thought that the University of Maryland was a little bit better at football though, especially since we have the new coach. I thought that having multiple diners was the coolest and that I would never get tired or dissatisfied with the food. I was wrong. I did not have outlandish expectations of college but more so reasonable ones.
Advice that I would give to future SGC students to ease them into college life is to try not to procrastinate, turn projects/ homework in early, spend your free time wisely and to always sneak in naps when you can. Some more advice that I would give is to let them know that having to separate yourself from others in order to focus is okay and that as long as you are doing your best in your classes you will do fine. Specific advice I would give them for CPSG100 is to study for the quizzes and to read the material because it is both helpful and interesting.