I thought college was going to be easy. I remember my transition from eighth grade to ninth grade not being difficult at all. I figured it would be the same for college, but I was very much deceived! I was an International Baccalaureate student in high school, so I was used to hearing that college would not be entirely different than the current difficulty of my classes. Grasping concepts and understanding material in college was surprisingly very difficult. I was able to persevere through this with the help of my professors, friends, and God. My absolute favorite part of this semester was joining the Catholic Terps. Through this club, I met Jesus in an intimate and profound way that I will talk more about later.
Going from a virtual school year to in-person classes was an adjustment. I remember telling one of my math classmates earlier in the semester, how I forgot how to do school. I forgot how to function in a classroom and how to manage the division of school and home. Classes were very fast-paced and not as interactive as my high school classes. However, all my professors were incredibly nice and compassionate, which eased the rigor of the transition to college. I did not expect the professors to be as kind as they were because I was under the impression that I would be on my own in college. Moreover, the required grading items were very different. In high school, I mostly relied on classwork and homework assignments to raise my grade, but in college, it was only my test grades that really carried my grades. I have never been a good test taker, so this has been a challenge I am learning to overcome.
In my CPSG100 class, I did not expect that we would cover topics like extinctions, geology, thinking critically, HTML coding, and Vikings. So far, we have explored everything that I have expected, and I am excited to see what we will cover next semester! On another note, I went on an excursion to the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. I was excited about this trip because as an Environmental Science major, I figured this would be the kind of work I would be interested in doing after college. However, it was not as interesting as I thought it would be, but I am hopeful that the other excursions will be more enjoyable! Now to my favorite outside-of-classroom activity that I participated in, the Catholic Terps. I was extremely excited when I heard there was a club of this sort at UMD. I eagerly awaited the day I would finally step foot at the Catholic Student Center! During the semester, I started to go to daily Mass, and I also started to attend adoration frequently. These things quickly became the things I looked most forward to every day. It was exactly what I had expected but in a way that completely exceeded my expectations!
University life was not entirely what I thought it would be like. I thought I would join a lot of clubs, go to office hours, and live out the “college life” but I did not do all these things. I thought that I would fall in love with my major, but I have not yet. I thought I picked the classes that interested me, but they only showed me where my interests truly lie. The thing that I did not expect to captivate my heart and excite me was Jesus. This whole time I thought I had it figured out. I would go to college, make lots of friends, easily pass my classes, and have a lot of fun. I was not entirely wrong, but my focus was wrong. I was only focusing on myself and not on the person who gave me all of these desires. Once I started to focus more on Jesus, He stole my heart and completely transformed me! My major has not yet set my heart on fire, but Jesus has. I should have gone to office hours more, but I desired so badly to go meet and spend time with Jesus in the Eucharist! I never would have expected this to be my reality at UMD.
Some advice I would give to future SGC students to help ease themselves into college life would be to go in with an open mind. If the student is not completely set on one major, they should go in undecided so that they can eliminate the stress of feeling torn between majors. They should also make a study schedule so that they do not fall behind. Next, they should find one club that interests them and stick with it. Finally, they should try to smile at others, I made most of my friends this way.