Initially, I had expected the SGC program to be a very intensive thing where we do a bunch of research and science things. I thought I would be stuck in a room filled with huge nerds, ”Big Bang Theory” type of nerds, who are a million times smarter than me. Everyone I have met here is chill and really cool. Yes, we have our nerdy interests but we’re just normal. Just in general, I had expected many of my peers to be brilliant, especially as a Computer Science major. As someone who was directly accepted into UMD’s Computer Science major, I was expecting rigorous work that would make me pull frequent all-nighters. UMD’s CS program is amazing and is one of the reasons why I attended UMD. Even on UMD’s website , their Computer Science program is ranked somewhere within the top ten programs across America. As I mentioned earlier, I was really expecting something totally unmanageable and crazy for my first semester. In reality, the workload isn’t impossible and insane. Yes, it is challenging but it isn’t insanely unreasonable. Even in my non-major courses, they’re very different from those in high school. I actually have work that I enjoy doing. I love my English class. I love my Persian Film class. It’s great. Overall, I am loving the experience. In high school, teachers would tell us all the time that stuff “wouldn’t fly in college” but now that I am here, it totally does. The way college was painted is extremely different from what I have experienced so far. Specifically, in CPSG100, there has been a variety of topics we have talked about that I didn’t expect. The first one has to be HTML programming. I just thought that Science and Global change would only focus on topics like biology and chemistry. The second one is the Modern Plesiosaurs, Ancient Astronauts, and Hollow-Earth Antarctic Space Nazis Lecture. Never in my life did I expect us to talk about conspiracy theories and Nazis in a science class. I found this so fascinating and started to look into all of this more after class. Honestly, I expected us to talk about how to reverse climate change and how we can recycle better. Besides coursework and classes, life as a university student isn’t all that bad. The worst thing about it is the smaller dorms in Centreville. Though, I did get lucky. I love my roomate. She’s great. We get along and have similar interests. I have heard my family’s horror stories about horrible roommates. I honestly prefer how college is set up than high school. I like doing my work independently. Personally, my brain shuts off around 5pm until I have dinner. It’s nice to know my limits and base my schedule off of that. Like in high school, I couldn’t do my homework or study during the day because I was in classes, which left me drained and unable to concentrate on my work until after 7:30pm, which was when I had dinner. After that, I would have to stay up late to do my work because I couldn’t focus or do anything until after dinner. Now, I can control my schedule and make sure it works for me and how I function as a human. Plus, I think it's great for me socially. I enjoy seeing my friends and talking to them. Not only do I get to hang out with my friends, I can actually control who my friends are. Unlike high school, I know I’m not going to be stuck with the same 80 people for all four years. I went to a small high school and I didn’t like how close knit everyone was. It allowed no room for most friend groups to flow and grow, and if anyone new came in it was hard to join. Plus, it was hard to leave a friend group, for personal reasons, without the entire grade noticing. For me, my high school friends were just a way to survive high school. I really only keep in touch with one person from my high school. Now, if I have beef with anyone, I can distance myself from them without being asked about it by everyone I know. Additionally, I can now be friends with like minded people and people who understand me. Now, I don’t have to ‘settle’ for people to eat with at lunch. Just in general, college has provided me with more freedom than being in high school does. For all future SGC students, I would highly recommend going to Service Day. Trust me, I was very hesitant on going because I am allergic to pollen and grass, and going out and basically being covered in all of that sounded awful but it was a great way to start off the year. Plus, I would definitely recommend the water weeding we did. The mud that covers you cools you off.