Before college, my view of it was slightly different than it is now. At the time, I had two brothers already in college and would slowly see them less and less as time went on. So, I just assumed that like them, college would also be a huge part of my life, where I would be focused solely on academics. As for other sources, I didn’t have anything influencing me. I did watch some shows, like Good Luck Charlie, where the show ends after the main character goes to college. And, it only made me think about any possible family strain whenever one of their children went to college. But, after enduring a full semester of college, I realized that it’s completely different for me. There may have been many times when I was holed up in my room doing homework, but there were also many moments when I would make new friends and memories. As for academics this semester, I felt like I was prepared to an extent. In high school, I had only taken one general chemistry class in my sophomore year, and then later chose to major in Chemistry without any more experience since then. So, it was somewhat challenging to transition into my major’s coursework at first. As for the rest of my classes, I felt adequately prepared, especially in my English class. My high school had put a lot of emphasis on writing essays, and I had taken two college-level English classes. But, I still struggled with some of my courses, as they had a “teach yourself” mentality, and with seven courses, I simply did not have enough time to teach myself. This led to me misplacing my time, and putting more focus on courses I was already doing well in. I’m hoping that I can improve on this issue next semester though. As for what is graded, some classes require more work than you expect or need. For example, in UNIV100, I had multiple projects and quizzes every other week, and it was a 1 credit course. But, for my three-credit courses, I either had the same amount of work or maybe even more, depending on the class. And, this was hard to manage, as I wanted to form relationships with all the new people around me. As for CPSG100 specifically, the class has been interesting! In lectures, I expected most of the topics to be covered, as they related to climate change. As for lectures I did not expect, I didn’t expect us to dive into the history of the environment in general, where we learned about ancient civilizations. I also did not expect us to talk about hypotheses and the factors that go along with them. Lastly, I did not expect the class to talk about pseudoscience. But, despite me not expecting some of these lessons, at the end of the day, they all still connected to the class’s overarching theme. That being said, I expected us to do more for the environment since we were talking about it often. The only event I can think of that relates to this was the first Scholars’ trip, where we were able to maintain trails and ponds. But, other than that, we haven’t impacted the UMD/College Park community much. And, I wouldn’t even expect it to be something difficult to do, but maybe just identifying an issue, and broadcasting it using a poster/graphic. That being said, when looking at our outside-of-classroom activities, I did enjoy them because they were accessible. But, when I first came to Scholars, I thought it would involve more events where we could get to know each other while serving our community. And, it seemed like, after the first week where we managed the trails, the activities were just looked at as a necessary grade, instead of a time when we could also collaborate while completing an assignment. If I have any advice for future SGC students, reach out for help as soon as you can, whether it be in SGC or any other class. It’s better to struggle in the beginning than leave all your worries for the end. It ultimately just causes unnecessary stress. But, I also stress the importance of having fun and spending time with your friends. It might take a while to find a good balance between the two, but as long as you try to make it work, it’ll work out.