Coming to college for the first time, I expected the structure of classes to be similar to that of AP classes, just faster, and in some ways that was true, but in many ways I've had a much different experience. I've found that the material covered is often very similar, especially in intro classes, because we are just covering the basics and the amount of practice given is also fairly similar. My current courses diverge from my AP experience, however, in the lecture style and grading system. Overall, I've found that even though college classes differed from exactly what I expected, I was far more prepared to take on my current classes than I had anticipated. This semester I'm taking seven courses: MATH 141, ENES 102, ENGL 101, CHEM 135, CPSG 100, ENCE 100, and ENES 099. I've found that the workload for these classes was very manageable and was a good transition into college classes without overloading myself. MATH 141 and CHEM 135 were probably my favorite major specific courses. I really enjoyed the lecture style of these classes paired with a more interactive discussion section as well as the overall content. This semester, ENES 102 has been my hardest class because although I enjoy the content of the class and have had physics classes in the past, I struggled to grasp the concepts fully. To help myself, I made friends in the class to form a study group with, went to review sessions and office hours, and did extra practice problems. I'm also glad that I had a class that was a bit harder for me, so that I know how to manage my harder classes in later college semesters. ENCE 100 was probably one of my more useful classes because it helped me figure out my major. I entered the university as a civil engineering major and this class helped me realize that civil was not going to help me do what I want career-wise and ultimately switch my major to chemical engineering. In general, over all of my classes, they have similar structure, delivery, grading, etc. They all have a lecture style, with a few exceptions for in class assignments or group work. Lectures also go more in depth and give more deep reasoning for concepts than in high school, which I enjoy. Grading is very different from high school because my grades in all of my classes rely on significantly less assignments and are mostly based on a small number of exams. Even though it is all new to me, I'm really enjoying college courses so far and I'm looking forward to my classes in future semesters.
In CPSG specifically, I came in expecting to learn about climate change along with what has and can be done to solve it. While this is a major theme of the program, it is only a small subset of the content that we covered this semester. This semester relied much more heavily on setting up this discussion and giving us the framework and background that we need to look at science and global change through an educated lens. I was not expecting this type of content from this class, but I'm glad that we covered it. We did spend time in the beginning of the year going over the basics of what science is, which I expected, but then diverging to thinking, forming arguments, and being informed in the middle of the semester was completely unexpected and incredibly useful. I also appreciated that we took time to go over climate change of the past and geological time records because that's a really big component of the program theme that I had never considered exploring and found very interesting. I was also glad that we got to learn in areas unrelated to the course theme, such as HTML. I enjoy coding, but HTML is a language that I had never taken the time to learn, so our website assignments were a really nice introduction to the language. I'm looking forward to learning about the future of climate science and what I can do with it in later semesters and hopefully being able to use what I learn to shape my practicum project.
I've lived in Centreville this semester and I think my favorite thing about living on campus is that we get to be surrounded by our peers and there's always someone to study, hang out, or just talk with. The atmosphere on campus is very welcoming and it's easy to make friends, so I've gotten to meet a lot of different types of people and learn and try new things. Centreville is also nice because it's a mix of lots of different majors, so I know there are engineering majors to study with, but I also get to make friends that are not engineering, or might not even be STEM. Life on campus matches pretty closely to my high-school vision of what it would be like, but I'm glad that it has been such a positive experience.
The advice I would give to future SGC students coming to college for the first time, is don't limit yourself to what you think you know and like and to be social and talk to the people around you. Coming to college, it can be easy to try to find your niche and stay there, but it has been so much more beneficial to try new things, join clubs I normally wouldn't join, and push myself to grow. I've also found that the best thing you can do here is talk to the people around you including classmates, professors, club members, etc. It's good to build a group of friends and a support system to rely on as you move through college.
Last modified: 12 December 2021