As I finish up my second semester at University of Maryland things I am starting to get into the swing of things.
The classes I were surprised about this semester were one of my gen ed classes, my 100 level coding class, and my 400 level math class. As an electrical engineering major I have to take ENEE150 which is the class next in sequence after ENEE140. I got over a 100% in ENEE140, so I thought ENEE150 would be a breeze. Right now, I'm not sure if I'll even get an A in ENEE150 because it really is a much harder class versus ENEE140 just teaching the basics. I thought I would lose a perfect A streak to a 300 or 400 level class, but I underestimated the difficulty of even a 100 level class. The really hard part though was at the end. I was expecting the difficulty near the end of the class to be similar to the difficulty near the middle. However, the difficulty of most technical classes ramps up near the end because they start building upon the already confusing content they covered mid-semester and this class was no exception.
Next BMGT289I also surprised me because I originally took the class because of the easy A and double gen-ed. I was not even originally going to take the class because I was first on the waitlist for another class and I was going to drop this class to take that class. However, the class offered so many opportunities. It was taught by Professor Jeff Miller who also runs a board game design competition. All of a sudden, this class became worthwhile for me and was a really exciting opportunity. Also, the class was associated with a business simulator. I didn't think I would do that good but I ended up excelling and being one of the contenders for the top spots in the class and I am performing even better than some business, accounting, finance, and economics majors.
My 'last' surprise course-wise was MATH463. I expected it to be more of a computation based math class like the 200 level math classes at this school. MATH461 is generally considered equivalent to MATH240, so I thought the MATH46x courses in general were for people who wanted to learn higher level math without being a math major. My professor decided math is not solely about computation but finding out 'why' and showing that it works. I am really glad that happened because I was able to be exposed to higher-level math proofs instead of just calculating stuff and get an idea for what the future of my math classes would look like if I chose to do so. Also, the class size was super small. Very consistently we would get a single digit amount of people in lectures and while there were 34 seats only 18 people enrolled in the section.
For seeking surprises, I think just do whatever catches your attention and stick with it. Almost nothing will turn out 100% as you planned it so just roll with the surprise and see what happens.
For relationship building with professors, I think when you attend lectures you will start to get a feel for his or her personality and will be able to form your own opinions. Anyway of showing interest can act as building a relationship such as, talking with them about the content after class, attending their office hours, or emailing them questions about topics related to the class. Sometimes you will also get special opportunities like undergraduate research, or professor-specific ones like the board game competition I mentioned earlier. I think my two strongest faculty relationships are with my MATH310 professor last semester, and the BMGT289I professor this semester. However, the biggest obstacle to this I would say is professor availability. For example, the second professor I mentioned held his office hours from 10 AM - 12 PM on Tuesdays when I had a class and he said he has around 500 students and doesn't have time to reschedule them for an individual students needs.
As a Muslim man, I think most of my social interaction comes from going to mosque on campus. However, I am not the social of a person and I never fully used my relationships to cope with the adjustment and just tried to not think about it. I think if you can push yourself to be more social that is great, but don't be unnatural with it. I think I stopped trying after the 4th or 5th week of college because that amount of effort in social activities was a lot for me and not really coming from a genuine place of wanting to participate.
Finally, I think the thing I was least prepared for was the amount of rejection I would face in a college environment I thought, all the high achievers are now clustered up in the top universities leaving more spots for students like me. While that is partially true, the thing with universities are that every university: everyone in the top universities being smart doesn't imply there aren't really smart kids in the state flagships like here. I have faced rejection from I think 7 different opportunities I put a lot of effort into this year, and those are only the ones that I remember. I don't know how to address these issues either. I would advise not let these rejections define your self-worth, but I understand that is really hard if you are used to feeling good because of what you have achieved in the past.