When I started my first semester of college in August, I was unsure of what to expect from my college experience, both academically and personally. I knew that I would have much more personal freedom and responsibility: I would be living on my own and I would be able to set my own schedule for things besides classes, but that also meant that it would be solely up to me to handle everything that college life threw at me. I thought that my classes would be very different from high school. I thought that attendance at lectures would be optional, nearly all of the assignments would be graded papers that were assigned a few times a semester, and I thought that almost every class I had would be in a big lecture hall filled with dozens of students.
As I was introduced to all of my classes, I realized that my assumptions weren’t necessarily incorrect, but that there’s a wide variety of class sizes and requirements, including but not limited to what I had thought all of my college classes would be like. In my first semester, as it turned out, none of my classes fit with all of those expectations. My astronomy and physics classes were smaller, with sizes between 20 to 40 students; nearly all of my classes had very regular (sometimes weekly) assignments, none of which were large papers; and many of my classes had mandatory attendance. In all of my classes, the pace of learning was much faster than it had been in high school. Every single class, new content and ideas were introduced, instead of some days being dedicated to teaching and some days being dedicated to practice or doing assignments. Because of this, even though you had the freedom to skip classes that didn’t take attendance, the consequences would be greater than in high school because you would miss new content.
Overall, many of my classes this semester were more similar to my classes in high school than thought they would be. However, nearly all of my classes required more effort and dedication than my high school classes in order to succeed in them. At the beginning of the semester, I had a difficult time adjusting to the higher workload, and finding the motivation to do my work even though I no longer had anyone to push me to get everything done. In high school, I struggled significantly with getting my work done due to my ADHD, and what helped me the most was having an external pressure to give me the motivation to complete my assignments. This pressure was anything from my parents or a therapist telling me to get my homework done, to seeing my peers in class doing their homework on time. Even before I started the semester, I knew that the absence of those factors would make it more difficult for me to stay on track. However, I also felt that the freedom to complete my assignments when I want, where I want, and the plethora of study spaces available on campus would help me be more focused and successful. For any incoming SGC students, I would recommend that they develop habits for getting all of their homework and responsibilities dealt with, ideally early in the semester.
For CPSG100, I had the same expectations that I did for all of my other classes. Like my other classes, CPSG100 was in many ways more similar to a high school class than I had imagined, except for the larger class size. Unlike most high school classes, there were lots of activities for CPSG100 outside of class, such as a service day at the beginning of the semester, and two different trips to the Museum of Natural History in DC. I also thought we would be learning just about human caused climate change and the science behind it. As it turned out, the material covered in the class was much more expansive, and touched on topics like misinformation, logical fallacies, and history— in addition to learning about the science of climate and climate change. I was somewhat surprised at first that some of the lectures went so far beyond climate change, but as I learned more in the class I understood why it was so important to discuss those topics. I learned much more than I had expected to learn, and several of the lectures made me question how I thought about our response to climate change as a society.
In terms of my social life on campus, I was partly correct and partly incorrect in my expectations. I expected that there would be a lot more opportunities to connect with and meet new people, such as clubs, hangout spots, and residence halls. I was right— especially in the first few weeks of the semester, there were lots of events and spaces meant to help freshmen meet new people and make friends. In contrast to high school, having more personal freedom also meant more opportunities to go out, and to do almost anything you would normally do alone or with your family with your friends instead. However, one thing that I did not expect was that it would still take a lot of effort to find a group of friends that I felt a connection to. For most of my first semester, I enjoyed hanging out with the people that I had met, but I still sometimes felt lonely because I hadn’t met anyone that I had a lot in common with. Although some people certainly did find close friends very quickly, I would recommend anyone coming into their first semester of college to not expect to find the right friends immediately. It’s much better to be happy with the friends you have now, but to also have faith that you will eventually find a group of friends that you can feel more comfortable and intimate with.