College has surprised me in more ways than one. During the summer, while reflecting on my high school experience and looking forward to my college life ahead, I had different expectations. Firstly, while I was aware of the autonomy that college life gives, it was much more than I expected. I could practically do anything at any time, and I would be responsible for my own actions. This sounds obvious, but the implications of this idea wasn't as clear as it is now. I also expected that my classes would be structured differently. While my classes weren't extremely fast paced or difficult, the variance in workload and difficulty seemed to depend more on the lecturer than the class itself. A class that I thought would take up more of my time ended up taking less than I thought, and a class that I thought would be fun and not time consuming, ended up taking multiple hours a week out of class to get things right (ENES100). I have had many highlights in my college career as well, such as my business class. While I originally saw it as a way to complete my general education requirements, I found that it contained knowledge that wasn't the usual things I would learn about in school. Rather than learning about a specific topic, we learned about how to think and be creative which was a breath of fresh air. The amount of graded items in these classes weren't as bad as in high school however. Generally, I knew what to expect in terms of homework and other items and I would actually feel good clearing them off of my canvas calendar. This may only be exclusive to the classes I am taking currently, so I hope that I am not setting myself up to be disappointed next semester. The out of classroom activities in other classes were pretty significant as well. I could usually structure my days around meeting with various groups and doing work in advance since we would have to meet so often.
CPSG100 was a class that was a nice break during the week. There wasn't a significant workload and the content was rather interesting. I already had a good understanding of climate change since it was a topic that we often covered in school and in extracurriculars. However, I found that the topics went more in depth and explored a lot of the consequences of climate change as well as the causes which I already knew a lot about. I found the activities about extinctions and human civilizations related to changing climates to be something of interest. I also thought that the DC metro assignment was cool and a fun way to meet new people, although I was already well versed in how to use the metro, being from Maryland. However, I didn't get a chance to go on a real excursion which I hope to do next semester. I hope to learn more about climate change and how it relates to humans, not just in the effects, but how people react to it in polls and other things. I want to learn a bit more about the politics behind it and what is enabling its rapid growth even when the effects are so apparent and devastating.
Living on campus, I feel like I have a good balance between school and free time. I can easily go to classes and meet up with friends anytime. I think that the dorm experience is something that I have found to be valuable in my college career so far. Advice that I would give to future SGC students would be to learn to try new things and be open to meeting new people. College is a time where you interact with many different types of people that you may never normally come in contact with and it would be a waste if you don't try and meet new people who may change or help you develop your character and ideologies. Another word of advice that I would give is to attend every class or at least try to. There is nothing wrong with taking a little break every once in a while, but ultimately, if you are trying to succeed academically, there is too much wasted opportunity everytime you decide to miss a class.
Success is something that isn't easily defined, as it varies from person to person and situation to situation. However, I can easily label my first semester at the University of Maryland as a success because I was able to learn many things in and out of class that helped me understand myself a little bit better. I hope that I can continue this trend with even greater success in the future as I continue to study and grow as a person.
