My first semester of college has brought about an unexpected shift in my mindset and has allowed me the opportunity to get a glimpse of how operating in the “real world” feels like. Being away from home without any guardians there to watch my every step has definitely been a drastic change, but it's opened me up to a lot of new opportunities when it comes to meeting new people, finding new hobbies, and trying new things in general.
The transition from high school class rigor to college level was honestly a lot higher than I expected it to be. I was anticipating acquiring a part-time job or an FWS(federal work study) and to go out and have fun every weekend like I heard about from friends. I came into the school year fully prepared to balance my social, work, and school life semi-equally, but by the time the first exams rolled around, that mentally almost completely left me. I found myself averaging around 6 hours PER DAY doing work/studying, as opposed to the 7 per week I managed in high school. It’s been quite a challenge adjusting to the harsher deadlines and workload, however, I eventually pulled through and I feel a lot more comfortable with managing my time and completing work on time.
SGC has been a great experience so far and has had a bigger impact on my semester overall than I originally expected. Prior to the new school year, I wasn’t really sure how I would feel about this program, mostly because it wasn’t my first choice (my original pick was Science, Technology and Society since it paired closer to me as a Comp Sci major). When we went on our first trip as a group to the garden, I had a better feeling about the program as a whole and got to connect with new people. The rest of the semester in SGC has only been positive in memory, especially the New York trip. In terms of the topics discussed during lectures, I’ve learned a lot of interesting and useful information that I was never aware of prior to taking the course. Some of my favorite parts about the course were the lectures about pseudoscience and fallacies and reading Kida’s book Don’t Believe Everything You Think.
Life in Centreville Hall was for the most part how I expected it to be but also a little better in some aspects. Before arriving, I thought the bathrooms were going to be one of the bigger problems I would face during my time here. I half expected the toilets, sinks, and ESPECIALLY the showers would be disgusting. I was honestly surprised when I found out that our bathrooms had space for changing outside the shower. Now, don’t get me wrong the toilets and showers were still a little suspicious but our bathrooms were unexpectedly well maintained by hard working staff so it exceeded my expectations solely based on that. Moving on to my dorm room, I had already gotten a good idea of what to expect because of orientation. Living with a roommate was very cool, especially since he was already a long time friend of mine. The Yahentamitsi dining hall was where I would usually eat and the food there was pretty good too. They have a nice variety of dishes to choose from and some good treats for dessert after. Meeting new people was a little difficult because of how much energy I had to put into my classwork and studying but whenever I had the chance, going out was definitely a highlight of the college experience.
The advice I would give to any future SGC students would be to, first, manage your time wisely. There are going to be a lot of distractions in your life and especially in this new environment so you need to remember why you're in college in the first place. Second, this might be a little contradictory, but I would say that you should enjoy the time you have. Go out and have fun. Try new things. You only experience college life once so make the most of it. Also, don’t stress yourself out too much because your mental health is more important than anything else.