As my first semester at college comes to a close, it is clear that life at college was both remarkably similar to what I anticipated, and yet somehow simultaneously nothing like what I thought it would be like, and definitely nothing approaching similarity to my previous experiences. College matched my expectations in many ways, but in other ways, many of which I did not even consider, it has been completely different.
In regards to my classes, the extent to which each class conformed to my expectations varied strongly, and that fact is perhaps the most surprising thing about my classes at all. Many things about my individual classes were unexpected, but what I expected even less was the disparity between the classes and the different ways they were run. The most easily described example of this is the syllabus for each class. In high school, if a teacher bothered to create a syllabus at all, it would either be a physical document or a pdf they would post online, often both. This semester, I had one professor give us a syllabus in a password protected PDF hidden behind multiple links on the ELMS homepage, and another professor give out a regular pdf stored in a file tree on ELMS. One of my professors simply pasted the text of the syllabus into the ELMS homepage, and the syllabus for this class was a publicly available webpage. The distinct manner in which each professor saw fit to conduct their class was similar to the variety of ways that the syllabi were created and stored, which was something of a shock at first, as in high school most classes were run in a fairly standardized fashion.
The class which I found to be most similar to high school was CMSC250. Its format is fairly simple: it has lectures, discussions, homework assignments, and the occasional test. Different from my high school classes in a few ways, but overall exactly what I expected from a college course, right down to the non-compulsory attendance and the volume of the material.
My other computer science class, CMSC132, was also similar to what I expected in the structure of its classes. However, I did not quite expect worksheets on random days graded simply on attendance; not from a college course, at least. From a computer science course with a strong coding component, I expected the graded work to mostly consist of long, involved projects that would take weeks to complete, like I had in my high school computer science classes. Instead, I was somewhat disappointed to find that the projects we did have were short and simple enough that I was able to complete them in just a couple hours.
My math class, I found to be the most dissimilar from high school courses, yet simultaneously the most compatible with both my expectations and my learning style. Attendance wasn’t compulsory, and aside from tests and quizzes, the class only had four graded assignments in the entire semester, none of which were long enough to take more than a couple hours to complete. Rather, most of the learning in the class was self directed, and self directed learning is the best way for me to learn, I have found. I tend to get more from a textbook than I do from a lecture.
This class, CPSG100, was also quite different from my expectations. The atmosphere is relaxed, the grading is fairly lenient, and the course load is not heavy, though opportunity and direction is given for self directed learning. I came into the class expecting to spend most of the semester covering the scientific method and climate change, both things we did cover, though not as heavily as I expected. I did not expect us to spend as much time on rocks and geology as we did, but, given that the professors are geology professors, I should have. The outside classroom activities, at least those I attended, were about what I expected. I was not able to attend as many as I should have, because I was rather slow to sign up and all the spaces were full by the time I realized sign ups were open.
In regards to this program as a whole, the biggest departure from my expectations was the lack of community, or at least the lack of sense of community I feel. I chose the scholars program partially because I thought it would be easier to make friends if I was both living among the same people and sharing a class with them. Yet, at the end of the semester, I barely know anyone in my dorm, and the friends I have made are almost universally housed elsewhere. Perhaps that is due to my introverted nature, but I simply did not interact with others in this program as much as I thought I would.
The facet of college life I found myself the least prepared for was how disorganized it is. There is a distinct lack of structure, which I expected, but I was not quite prepared for how much the onus would be upon me to create that structure for myself and organize my own time. Additionally, I was not prepared for the sheer size of the campus, both in physical dimension and in population. It feels as though anywhere I go is a fifteen minute walk from my dorm, to the point that I am beginning to wonder if the campus is a non-euclidean space, and it feels as though I never see the same person twice.
My advice to future students is that your first priority should be to impose some form of structure upon your life. If you find that structure to be obtrusive later on, it can be easily abandoned, but in the early days structure is vital for learning how to manage your own affairs independently. I will not attempt to advise you to attend all your classes, for if you are the type to skip class my words will not dissuade you. The most important advice I can give, however, is that, should you miss a class, get caught up immediately, and make sure you learn the material at the same schedule as everyone else. I allowed myself to wait to learn material until just before I would need it, and found myself spending enough time catching up on one thing that by the time I finished it, there would be another thing drawing my attention, be it something else I fell behind on or some other matter I needed to handle, such that I was always too focused on the next few days to plan ahead. It’s better to stay on top of things and organize your time in advance.