There are many things that you don’t expect your past self to ever see you doing in college. I never knew that I would have such an interest in climate change and meteorology itself. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy the Scholars program, especially Science and Global Change because I thought there was nothing really interesting about it. However, after taking CPSG100 and CPSG101 and taking an AOSC200 class which was supposed to be a general ed requirement. I never expected myself to like the topic so much and how much the world is at risk of changing. It makes me want to take action myself and try to figure out how I can use my skills to help inspire others to become educated and combat against climate change as well. Really, not once in my life would I think that how the atmosphere works would interest me, but here I am learning about the troposphere and stratosphere and learning how to read weather maps in AOSC and am finding myself fascinated about these things. So a piece of advice I will tell incoming students is that do NOT be afraid to try new classes because you never know what you may enjoy.
One thing about going to a university is that there are so many different activities and things you can partake in. And in these activities, whether there is a class or club, are professors and/or mentors that will help guide you to succeed. I was able to form solid connections with some of my professors, but more importantly, I became close with a lot of my teaching assistants in my classes. For instance, I spend a lot of time a week on MATH141 and I was able to develop a strong relationship with my teaching assistant who helped me with parts of the class where I had been stuck. This applies to a lot of my classes as well. I succeeded in taking advantage of the resources that were provided to me, which helped me do well in a lot of my classes. For incoming students, I would tell you guys to please take advantage of the help each of the classes gives you. Even if you don’t necessarily have a question, going to office hours just to double check something both helps show your knowledge and interest in the subject to the professors and teaching assistants.
For me, especially in the beginning, I did not like college life at all and adjusting to living here was difficult for me. I was never one to try to go out of my way to try something because not a lot seemed to interest me. Also, I had a broken foot first semester and used that as an excuse to not go to places. However, after I finally started going outside more to random events, I started to meet new people and really build connections with them. It also brought me out of my comfort zone and I started talking more and doing stuff that I would not normally do. The hardest obstacle of forming these relationships is simply just forcing yourself to try new things; the rest just happens naturally. For next year's incoming students, I strongly advise them to just try new things and be open to meeting new people. For me, it took a long time to do that (literally the second semester till I finally made more friends), so don’t make the same mistake!
I was not prepared for being organized academically. In high school, I could get away with doing some of my assignments last minute. However, I learned a very valuable lesson: time is everything. When you start doing more activities and get assigned more work, it is important to balance these things for your mental health. To all the newcomers, I strongly suggest all of you to stay on top of your assignment/work and do them as soon as possible, so things don’t end up stacking.