Connor's "Freshman Time Capusle" Reflection Essay

My experiences over the course of my Freshman year have been varying and interesting. To start off, when I came to the University of Maryland as a Computer Science major, I had no idea that I might be trying to switch majors. That is, until the summer before my first semester began. At that time I found out about the Immersive Media Design major, and realized that it was exactly what I wanted to get out of Computer Science without all the classes I did not want. After I discovered this new major, I immediately began signing up for classes that were prerequisites for switching majors. This was a big lesson for me: really look at other majors even if you are coming from a different one. No matter if you do not think it would be interesting, you may find classes within that major you enjoy more than the one you are currently in. Continuing this, talk to others on campus and learn what they are doing. I found out about other electives and classes that I may be interested in later on, like the ARTT courses and such.

Unfortunately, many of my courses for my major this past year have been large lecture courses, and that combined with classes that were usually back-to-back, I have not had a lot of time to actually try and get closer to any of my professors. However, if either I had smaller classes or more time after classes, I would greatly suggest talking with them and asking questions.

On a better note, I did share the same classes with multiple people, and because of that I was able to form better relationships, as we could talk about assignments we had over the course of the entire year. I also think that a lot of people can connect with others as a way to find ways to de-stress after exams or just have fun during the semesters. I very much stress this, as getting stressed early on is a great way to fail a course.

In terms of things I was least prepared for would have to be getting from class to class. Unfortunately for me my major courses were stretched out across campus, so I would have 10 minutes to sprint from one end of the campus to another. There could have been ways to avoid this but because of my major only having so many professors, my choice of courses were largely limited to one section a lot of the time. However, this is an issue that probably only came up because I chose such a new major to try and get into. Many other majors should not have this problem, and students should definitely try and organize their course load and schedule accordingly.

Last modified: 09 May 2022
Back Home