5/9/2023

CPSG 101

Time Capsule

High school is nothing like college. In terms of the social aspect, at least at the University of Maryland, everything is freeing as opposed to cliquish in high school. In college, you are free to join any of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of clubs they offer. I do not know if this is a UMD thing, but most people are so accepting of everyone’s background. This makes the transition from high school to college easier since it is easier to be yourself without people judging you for enjoying what I think is cool. Additionally, making strong friendships make life a little less lonelier and more responsible. At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to go to class, participate in activities, and even eat food. Having friends that can drag you out of bed even if you do not want to, helps with even the little things. In terms of education, everything is of course more rigorous and fast pace. For example, I liked math in high school because it was easy and I was always good with numbers, but I had a revelation about math once I took calculus 1 and 2 at UMD. I felt like I was learning to memorize a formula in high school, but here I was learning how to derive that formula and why it works. This drastically improved my problem-solving skills and my overall intelligence. Fortunately, these were major requirement classes so I had to take them in order to graduate, but these classes were not a walk in the park. I had to put in sleepless nights in order to firmly grasp some concepts that are not the most easily learned or taught. I overcame this by doing a bunch of practice problems and working with people to see how their minds think about problem-solving. Getting multiple perspectives on how to solve problems helps generate new ideas in your own mind and could also be a means to check your own work. Having revelations is not just for math classes though. I feel like the University will force you to think critically about every subject. I have not taken that many non-stem classes, but from my understanding, they can really poke at philosophical questions as to why things happen the way they did. I feel like there is no best way to prepare for college. You kind of have to just get thrown in and figure it out as you go, kind of like life since it is another step in it. In terms of preparation, it depends on your major and if there are people from your high school going to the same college as you. If you are in a hard major that is immediately going to throw you into challenging classes, you should dedicate some time to really understanding concepts before you step foot in a lecture. However, even this can prove to be meaningless because of the type of professor that you get. In my experience, you can only truly know how to prepare for a class after the first exam. In terms of socially, it is better if you have other people from your high school going to the same college as you since you would at least know people and you can get lost together a laugh it off instead of being scared, but obviously, this is out of your control. Additionally, it is better because you are going to make friends outside of your high school friend group and they will make friends as well, which will generate more connections that you will need later on.