To be honest, I did not know what my expectations for this class was. When I got into the scholars program at UMD, I did not know what was so special about it. I just thought I was going to be in a different dorm then the regular freshman. I'm glad to know that my assumption was wrong. The nature of my classes was pretty different to what I thought. Obviously due to the pandemic, the class structure was shifted but I do not imagine it would be drastically different than normal. From what I was told, the majority of the grades were projects and exams. In one class in particular, which was ENGL 101, I had daily homework. I was sort of surprised when I had daily homework, because I thought the majority of my grade was exams and projects. This homework was probably what we were supposed to do in class, as it seemed relatively simple and could be done during class. Or I could be completely wrong and the professor designed the class to have daily homework. Other than that, the workload and structure was what I expected. I expected the pace to be pretty quick compared to high school, which it was. The workload was not a lot but it seemed manageable. Although most of the classes were lower level, the workload was manageable for an incoming freshman having to deal with the stress of being a freshman, which was like being in a new place with barely no friends and having to make new friends and having to transition from high school to college. My expectation for this class was pretty low, as I did not know what this class would be entirely about. From what my friend told me, it seemed like we were going to learn about dinosaurs and all the events that occurred in prehistoric times. Not saying that we did not, this first semester was different yet interesting. We studied what science is, which I thought I knew enough about. We dove deep into science and the nature of science. I am glad that the course material was vast and interesting because not only did this course go over science, but how the world is changing each decade. For example, in one of the in class workshops we learned how greatly the climate has changed in the past couple hundred years. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the world has gotten substantially warmer. When I saw the course name I was like we are probably going to study climate change. We did, but I felt like we sort of brushed over it. Comparing the in and out of class activities, I enjoyed the in class activities as it was one of the only opportunities I had to actually engage in a conversation with someone when it was hard in this climate. In my opinion, the outside of class activities seemed a little boring compared to some of the in class activities we had to do. I lived on campus this past semester in Centreville Hall, and although I could not socialize with my floormates often, I enjoyed life on campus. In my opinion, the biggest difference from high school to college was all the free time I have in between class. In high school, I just had to go from class to class, and it was often exhausting toward the end of the day. In college, I can have upwards of an hour in between classes that I can do whatever I want. This allows me to reset my mental state and be able to focus for the next class because I am able to take a mental break. I had envisioned college to be high school but at a faster pace. The reality is drastically different, and I feel like it is for the better that it is. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, all the sporting events do not allow fans. As a person who is a big fan of sports, this was saddening to me because I feel going to college sports games is one of the biggest parts of the college experience. Hopefully by next fall, I am able to go watch sporting events in person. I am surprised that I was able to socialize with my floormates much more than I had envisioned. I assumed that they were just on my floor and I would meet a lot more people that I would hang out with from class. I guess due to the pandemic, this was not able to happen, and our floor became a sort of community that would always help each other out.The advice I would give to future students to help them ease into college life is to meet your classmates, utilize free time well, and socialize when you can. Meeting the SGC members on my floor was probably the best thing about living on campus, because they all were nice and we would have a lot of fun when we socialized together. My next piece of advice would be to utilize your free time well, as you have a lot of it. My biggest regret was not optimizing and utilizing the free time to the fullest. Covid freshman year was definitely difficult but I hope not many people have to experience this and have a wonderful time transitioning.
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