The best way to summarize my feelings regarding my classes, especially compared to my highschool, is everything that I expected but nothing at all what I expected, but I also did not even know what to expect. I would have to generate a long list of every single aspect of college life in order to actually organize my thoughts because college is a completely different world. At first, you're living in your hometown during the summer where everything is familiar to you. You have a routine, you know all the fun local spots. And then you are whisked to college in September. But above this, just as your hometown was your community, your college will become your own community as well. While it does come with a lot of stress, I wouldn't trade it for the world with all the freedom and fun that it gives you.
Overall, I find it so much easier to learn with college courses. It is distinct and organized, and you can find so much help anywhere. Our campus provides tons of resources for tutoring and group study sessions. Each professor provides a syllabus with an actual schedule on it and exact dates of exams, which I am so thankful for because I can plan ahead. Also, rather than spending 8 hours a day sitting down, it is nice to only have two-four classes a day with walking in between to help me not feel so stiff.
Let's start off with precalc. I love math, it's my favorite subject, so I was looking forward to college math, but dreading the difficulty of it at the same time. I have to start off by saying that math class in college is a hundred times greater than any highschool math class I’ve taken. It is so much more organized, and there is even a student discussion provided for the class which was extremely helpful and forced us to talk to our classmates about our group quizzes. I found it so much easier to learn. I could take notes in my own time and in my own way.
History of Lawlessness. I took this course as a general education credit, so I picked it because of how interesting it looked. My biggest issue was the professor - I have learned now that the professor is the greatest determining factor for whether you enjoy a class or not. The content of illicit activity would have been more interesting perhaps if it was taught by somebody else.
History of Science. This was my absolute favorite class this semester, and this is the prime example of what I previously mentioned: it's the professor that determines if you enjoy a class. I thoroughly enjoyed this class because of Professor Baldwin. She was kind, understanding, and very passionate, as well as knowledgeable, about her content, so it made it so easy to learn about. This made me so much more motivated to do well and pay attention. She worked with her students rather than against
Now CPSG. Scholars did not take up as much space in my life as I thought it would - I guess that it’s only what you make of it. A decent amount of the content that we learned during scholars was actually what I already learned during AP bio in highschool, which I thought was nice to have some background knowledge. There was also tons of new information on topics like fossils and ancient history. My absolute favorite reading from the class, and honestly might be my favorite book in general, was the Sixth Extinction. It really opened my eyes to this whole world that the author works in. Professors Merck and Holtz also have such extensive background knowledge that they made the topics a lot more interesting to learn about. While it wasn't related to my major or future career, it was something that I actually found myself interested in when I never ever thought myself to be interested in dinosaurs.