Some of the courses that I found to be particularly helpful and interesting in my Freshman year would be ENES100 and BMGT 289A. Something that these classes had in common was that they challenged me to work in groups with people who I never met before for a large project worth most of our grade. While I have worked in many groups before for minor group projects, it wasn’t until college when I had to rely on others and work together for the entire duration of the class. In addition, while the content of them wasn’t too much of a surprise, I found that the way things were taught were very different.
Much of ENES100’s work was simply designing an over terrain vehicle made to accomplish several goals on an obstacle course. However, the instructors were much more hands off and the work fell on us to learn and adapt along the way to achieve our goals. This course helped turn knowledge and theory into a practical and tangible goal, something that helped me gain a sense of direction and ambition.
On the contrary, BMGT 289A was much different since the professor was one who was very hands on and supportive. His class was interesting because rather than teaching things that were explicit facts, he taught us ways to be more creative and innovative. I appreciated how it made me think in a different way about a variety of different topics.
Developing relationships with faculty is something that is much different than high school. It takes an explicit effort in order to even contact the professors for the most part and even more to maintain and develop a relationship with them. While I haven’t had much success in this category yet, I have talked to many TA’s and found that they were really approachable and helpful. Since they aren’t too far apart in age from us, I found that asking them for help was really easy and they would remember me after we talked a few times, making our relationship something that eased the difficulties of some classes.
I found that breaking out of my shell after quarantine was a bit difficult and at first it was a bit difficult to make new friends on campus. However, before long, it was clear that I only had to put in an effort and there were a plethora of people who were willing to talk and maintain a friendship with me. My advice to next year’s freshman is that the greatest obstacle to forming friendships a lot of times is the lack of confidence in yourself. If you can overcome this obstacle, you can make many friends who can help you cope with troubling events, improving your mood and academic achievement in many cases.
The part of university life that I was least prepared for was the fact that many things do not go your way. High school was fairly easy for me, largely in part because there was much less independence and choice back then. I had less freedom in determining the course of my future back then simply because many of my clubs and classes were limited. With more freedom, I have had much more fun, but also had my fair share of blunders due to my own carelessness. I would advise that future freshmen will plan their time well and try to live a balanced life.
