Caroline's Freshman Time Capsule

High school academics to college academics is an extreme jump. The courses that were the biggest revelation in my eyes were CHEM136, general chemistry for engineering, and ENES100, a project focused introductory course into engineering. These are some of the introductory level courses that all students in the A. James Clark Engineering school must pass in their first year. They are difficult classes, meant to weed out those students who will not excel in engineering unless they put in their utmost effort. As I reflect back on taking these classes this semester, there's a lot that I wish I had done differently. It might seem like a small factor but this is what stood out to me after my first year: thoroughly looking at the syllabus. The syllabus was a learning curve for me, because it did not have as much depth and significance in my highschool classes as they do in my college classes now. College classes follow all syllabi down to the exact dates, and it helped me in my second semester to completely build my semester schedule with activities, so that I can plan in advance and balance multiple activities. Especially because I started a couple outside-school activities in addition to my workload. Taking advantage of office hours, university tutoring, and guided study sessions will give you an extra boost on the material if you have difficulty learning by yourself or need to ask questions.

Developing mentoring relationships is also extremely significant in University studies. It allows you to use the University to its full potential. Building connections will expand your perspective as well as provide you with access to new opportunities. It is always difficult for me to start these relationships because I have social anxiety, as many people do, but you can overpower that sometimes. For example, In my ENES100 (engineering) class, all of our groups had a lot of opportunities to develop relationships with the Professor along with all the Teaching Assistants (TAs) and Teaching Fellows (TFs). I developed my relationships by continuously asking questions, and sometimes asking them questions can lead to a lot more knowledge beyond what you originally asked.

I would say that developing strong friendships is a pretty important part of coping with university studies as well as mentally dealing with the transition from highschool to college. Personally, I am pretty introverted and enjoyed nights inside by myself where I played my own video games or watched my shows, but I started to realize that I loved having my roommate in the room with me. Even if we aren't always directly interacting or talking to each other. It is nice to have another presence in the room, so it didn't feel so lonely after moving away from my family. I also joined a fraternity and met many other friends around Cambridge Community that I am grateful for in my first year of high school. I had a lot more chances to talk to people and spend time with my friends here than I ever did before college.

With how much shock the transition from highschool to college gave me, I was initially surprised that this was how the system truly worked. It didn't seem possible that any newly graduated high school student was ready for this level of independence and freedom, I mean it didn't seem like my high school prepared me much. The first few weeks, even the first month, of college were extremely difficult. But, you have to realize that you're not alone. Everybody is going through that weird transition together, and everybody is just as stressed out. Knowing that allowed me to relax after a while. What helped me the most was taking advantage of as many opportunities that I could.

Last modified: May 10, 2023