I originally expected my first semester at UMD to be challenging and worlds apart from high school, but after finishing up my first semester, it wasn't as scary as I originally thought it would be. I was able to take classes I really enjoyed and learned a lot from and make new friendships with those I met at college. While some of my classes were really difficult, I still learned a lot from them. From my experience, the classes are graded and taught extremely differently from classes in high school. Exams could be curved or dropped, quizzes could be dropped, homework can be dropped, and everything relies on how much time and effort you put into the class. Most lectures focused on giving the basics on new topics we were learning, it was very similar to taking notes in high school. I expected the University courses to be impossible and extremely challenging, and while they were challenging, they were doable. One of my favorite classes I took this semester was ARTH200 which studies Ancient and medieval art. Through the class, I have learned so much about how to describe art work and the technical terms used. Another class I have really enjoyed was BSCI207 because the format of the class was easy to get the hang of and the teacher is very understanding. All in all, my first semester classes have been pretty good.
While I didn't have much to expect from CPSG100 as a class, it was a lot different from my other classes because it included more hands-on learning and included excursions you could go on. In CPSG100, I didn't expect a large chunk of our learning to be on the html code, I thought most of it would be centered around more global change and we would learn about html code later, but this semester we covered mostly html coding. I have learned some html coding in the past so most of it wasn't extremely new for me or difficult. I was expecting us to be able to go fossil hunting on the beach as an excursion, but sadly it was canceled due to covid, but we might be able to go next semester. The excursions and other outside of the classroom activities explore similar topics covered in class or expand on different areas of learning in science. For example, I attended a presentation from Dr. Paul Romani, which covered his experiences working for NASA and the different projects he worked on. While his presentation didn't correlate directly to SGC, he's work was still interesting to learn about and hear about.
My high school expectations were mainly based on what others told me their experiences were like. I expected life as a university student to be really difficult, especially with making new friends and trying new things, but I was wrong. I was able to make a lot of new friends and try several new things. I was scared I wouldn't have time for anything, but I have been able to balance my classes with different things I've wanted to try or do. Especially with going to the gym, I was able to find friends to go with and I have found that it is a great stress reliever. Living at Centreville definitely has its perks because of how close it is to some of the buildings I have class in, how close it is to the gym, and most of my friends live in Centreville too. Dorm living also wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but the only downside is not being able to have pets which is definitely what I miss the most right now.
My best advice for future SGC students is to take everything one step at a time, because college can be overwhelming, but if you break it down and only worry about one thing at a time, you will do well and enjoy your time here. Also, don't load yourself with too many credits, try to space them out the best you can throughout your four years here and try to get your work done ahead of time because getting any assignments done early will allow you to have more time to study for your classes. In CPSG100 specifically, while the html coding can be trying at times, once you are able to figure it out everything else will be easier.