Ayub Ahmed's Time Capsule Reflection Essay

As my freshman year is coming to an end, I think I've learned more this year than most of my life. College life is learning through trial and error, if you don't understand, figure it out yourself. No matter what type of preparing you do for college, you can’t accurately protect yourself from a rude awakening. For me, the classes that surprised me the most were my major classes. As a mechanical engineer, ENES 102 and ENES 100 were very challenging and gave me that college shock. In these courses, I learned something nothing like I learned in high school. ENES 102’s new content is what tripped me up in that class but ENES 100 course structure is what really shook me up. In this course you only have like a month of lectures and the rest you're put into a group expecting to make an OSV (over sand vehicle). The diversity of class structures is truly amazing and is why you learn so much more in college than anywhere else. The strategies that really helped me survive in these courses are simple. First I observe and just watch how the class will be run. Next, I make habits and note which helps me perform better. Once I’ve done those, I form a pattern in which I can understand all material the best. For example, when I study for my classes I first write down all topics that I will be tested on, then I section all the topics and go through my notes. Rewrite the main ideas of each topic and highlight what I'm not comfortable with. I watch videos on what I'm uncomfortable with and once I’m comfortable I begin practice exams and do those constantly until the exam.
Another highlight of my freshman year was the connections I’ve made with 2 specific faculty members. In the class ENES 100, my professor (Mike Galyncski) and our TA (Dillon Capalango) are my closest members. With the level of difficulty of this course I had to bombard these two consistently and with the way they provided help, they made me feel more comfortable than I have ever been in college. They don’t know how much I appreciate them but they really did help me a lot. To form relationships with any faculty member, as questions! Put their experience in your favor instead of wasting your time. Also constant communication makes people comfortable.
One of the harder things for me was making new friends in this school. Growing up I lived in a minority majority area and being a black man, I saw a lot of people that looked like me. Coming here, I barely saw anybody that looked like me at all but that wasn’t a problem, the problem was the culture change. Nobody understood my humor, lingo, the way I dressed and it was just different. Luckily I experienced a new culture and raised awareness of mine but people tend to make friends with those like them, and I wasn’t really like that. Once I had genuine conversations with people I guess I realized that even though we aren't alike, it doesn't mean we can't click. A piece of advice I would give is to just try to make friends early, be the outgoing person to just walk up to someone and start talking. A lot of people are just like you and looking for new people to talk to and they will appreciate you for what you did.
Overall, don’t stress too much because mental health is always first but step out of your comfort zone! That is the best advice I can say for the whole college experience. Stepping out of your comfort zone makes your comfort zone expand and you can do more and more things with no stress.

Last modified: May 9, 2022