As my first semester at UMD comes to a close, I realize that there's a lot to reflect on. The past few months have been very fulfilling, as I have learned and experienced so many new things both inside and outside of the classroom. Some things about college lived up to my expectations, while others did not, which I will discuss here.
My first classes have been slightly different than what I expected, but it was not too difficult for me to adjust to them. Thankfully, I think my high school prepared me well in terms of dealing with the workload, and taking online classes last year significantly improved my ability to teach myself, which has been an important skill for many of my classes so far. A lot of my classes used a sort of flipped-classroom teaching style, where students master the content through independent practice. I find this method to be a lot more effective, since it strengthens critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Each professor has a pretty distinct teaching style; my PSYC100 class, for example, doesn't have any exams, is is mostly discussion-based. My INAG110 class has a similar structure, though it does have exams occasionally. My CHEM134 and MATH140 clases, on the other hand, are more focused on practice problems and worksheets. I was surprised to see how nice and approachable a lot of the professors were. I was often told that reaching professors would be difficult, and I expected them to be a lot more strict. The case was quite the opposite; they are all very open to questions and happy to give advice. The grading is also generally what I expected it to be; I knew that exams were going to have a lot more weight than they did in high school, but I thought that exams were going to be graded more harshly than they are. Lastly, it was a bit strange going back to in-person learning, but the adjustment was a lot easier than I expected it to be because I think classes are more engaging and interesting to listen to when they're in-person.
In my SGC scholars class, we covered a lot of interesting topics this semester. Some things that I did not expect to learn about were logical fallacies and pseudoscience. In the beginning, I thought we were going to jump straight into lessons on climate change, but in retrospect, it makes sense that we started by discussing the basics of scientific thinking, because a lot of people unintentionally follow illogical ideas and arguments. I expected to learn more about policies and technologies that mitigate human impact on the environment, but I think this is a topic to discuss towards the end of the course, once we have a stronger understanding of the basics of science and global change. There were also a lot of activities outside of the classroom I participated in with scholars. I did not expect there to be so many field trips and scholars activities, but it was nice to discover that they had so many opportunities to get students involved with the community.
My university life has been surprisingly similar to my high school vision of college life. As a commuter, most of my routine has not changed too dramatically from high school, since I still live at home. I used to visit the University regularly for an internship, so I was used to being on campus back in high school. What's most different from what I expected is the amount of freedom I have with my time now. If I have a long gap between classes, there are various different libraries I can go to, and some days, I get to leave campus early, which is very convenient. Also, joining clubs as a commuter has proven to be more difficult than I thought it would be; a lot of the clubs I'm interested in joining only start very late in the day, and it's difficult to make time to come back to campus in the afternoons. Still, I managed to find some clubs that fit my schedule, and though I haven't been able to join all the clubs I wanted to, I'm glad that I found a way to join a few of them. Other than these things, college life basically lives up to what I expected it to be like.
My advice for future SGC students would be to take all the opportunities that come your way and try new things. For example, try going to as many of the activities scholars hosts to meet new people. Also, try signing up for things like leadership positions or service activities to gain experience and build connections. You're going to be a lot more independent in college, so it's important that you take initiative to make the most of it. Lastly, make sure to take care of your mental health: do assignments early so stress doesn't pile up, and take time occasionally to focus on yourself.