When I was accepted to UMD, there was a little added paragraph to my acceptance letter that said "Welcome to the Scholars Program". I did not want to be accepted to UMD because I wanted a reason not to go, and now there was this new program I had to figure out. Fortunately for me, I decided that out-of-state was not a good option for me or my family and I chose UMD. What was waiting for me in the Scholars Program and life, in general, was nothing I could have predicted but I must admit I have been pleasantly surprised. I can be very anxious, and my expectations of what college would be like were much worse than what I have experienced. This first semester has been an average of high “highs” and low “lows” but regardless I think I will look back at this time in my life with deep nostalgia. Let's begin this narrative with what I actually came to college for; classes. I entered UMD undecided but not without a general idea of what I wanted to pursue. I have always been a person who thrives in the between. I am interested in such a broad range of things that it was hard to imagine my life so focused on one subject. I particularly have always been attracted to technology and was always fascinated by the intersection of tech and people. That's why I officially declared myself as a Social Data Science major. The class that convinced me to make that just was called Designing Fair Systems taught by Dr. Daniel Greene. It was only the second time that the class was being taught so all subject matter was incredibly new and accurate. The highlights of that class include discussing the societal holes in predictive policing algorithms, the potential of automated vehicles, and the moderation of social media. I found myself enamored with the content and knew that this was similar to what I may want to work on post-graduation. Aside from that class, I took basic general education classes like oral communications Math 120 (which remains to be a struggle of its own beast) but my most surprising class had to be LARC 151: Urban Agriculture. Before college, I had a very limited variety of courses offered to me in high school. I took this class because it was something I didn't even know someone could teach me. I must admit I found the class boring at times but its focus on group work has helped me with my collaboration skills which haven't been strengthened since before Covid. Howevor, the space where I was forced to collaborate the most was certainly Scholars. Dr. Merck and Dr. Holtz were essentially my first introduction to UMD and I wouldn't have it any other way.Within 24 hours of moving in, I was taken on a bus with a ton of people whom I had never met and we did manual labor together. Even though we had been told beforehand what was going to happen that day, It was still an odd shock. It was trips like service day and the New York trip that helped me feel solidified into a community, without me even having to try. The coursework for Scholars was unexpected. I thought that we would be doing more scientific work regarding global warming but it was a nice surprise to learn about how to analyze science and spend time on that. This semester gave me a strong background in research and analysis that I will use during the rest of my academic career. I’m not sure yet how scholars will integrate into my career but I am excited to see what is ahead. My life took a lot of unexpected twists and turns, both literally and figuratively. My college experience started with me cracking jokes with a paramedic in an ambulance after my roommate and I crashed a VEO scooter. That night was pivotal in how the rest of the semester went. I know it doesn't seem like it but I was given the gift that every new college student needs: an automatic icebreaker. Overnight, I got a reason to make myself known to professors. If I met someone I knew it was incredibly likely that they would ask about the black brace on my arm. The arm let me meet a ton of new people a lot easier. Some of those people I haven't talked to since but some have stuck around a bit longer than that. My vision of college is honestly pretty similar to what has happened. I have friends but I understand that it takes time to form close connections, time that we simply haven't had yet, and that is okay but I wish I had realized that before entering. The past few months have been surreal. At times I feel like I am just playing pretend but I’m not. I’m still adjusting but progress has been made. I hope that next semester when I read back this essay I can point to events and people that show I have made progress working on myself. If I had to advise a future SGC student it would be don’t ride a VEO scooter. In all seriousness, I would tell a future freshman to just say yes to things, obviously within reason. Don’t make any unsafe decisions, but if there is an event, or someone asks you to lunch, just say yes. Everyone is trying to meet people so it's not as weird as you will feel about it. College has been hard, and I fully expect it to be difficult all four years, but I know that my non-academic life will become more natural and comfortable over time.