Emon Chatterji's "Expectations vs. Reality" Reflection Essay

Before coming to UMD, I had a rough idea of what to expect: my classes would be lecture halls with dozens of other students, I would be far busier than I was in high school, and I could expect to be studying with friends - something that wasn’t possible in the pandemic. While all three of these were accurate predictions, I didn’t anticipate how many other students there would be in my lectures, just how busy I would be, or how much of my time would be spent with other people.

My high school was one of the largest in the county - I went to school with about 3500 other students. This didn’t really prepare me for entering my first computer science lecture with hundreds of other students though. It felt very unnatural for about the first week to sit with so many other people during lectures, but I got used to the format faster than I had expected.

I also didn’t anticipate the workload. Majoring in computer engineering, I knew I would be taking a lot of credits, but I didn’t expect to be completely swamped in work. It felt like I was absolutely swamped in work from the first day. It was probably because I was coming from an online school experience that didn’t have us do a whole lot of work from day to day. This was something that took me quite a while to get used to. Having to apply focus is something that has always been a struggle for me and I am still working on it. So far, the only effective trick has been to have a timer on my phone that tracks how long I use each app and prevents me from using them if it starts getting excessive.

Another stark change from the pandemic was engaging with academic material alongside real people. This was a very welcome change. Being able to talk to people about projects, work with people on homework or even just complain about classes together was really important to me. Going through the same problems in a large group makes me feel as if I have a larger grasp on them than feeling as if I am spiraling on my own.

As for Scholars, I was admittedly very apprehensive about the entire program after service day. For the next couple of colloquiums, I didn’t see what we were achieving at all. I wasn’t in the mind to quit the program since it wasn’t much of a trouble to show up for the meetings and get the few assignments finished, but I still didn’t understand what was special about the program. It was only when the lectures started to break new ground when the topic shifted from logical fallacies to geology that I began to take an interest. Learning about geology with no fear of massive exams or fear of failing was a really great experience.

My mother’s view on education is that it should be done in a very pure manner. She believes that if you go to school to study something, you shouldn’t study for exams but instead be studying out of love for the subject and with that in mind, you will do well on exams regardless of your preparation. Unfortunately this ends up being too idealistic in my experience, but this was really the first place I was able to see what she meant. My only experience with geology in the past was in my middle school’s science class which force-fed it to us in the space of a week or two, gave us a unit test and never touched the topic again. It really isn’t an area of science I have ever had any interest in, but it still is fascinating to learn about the history of the planet and I really have been enjoying the lectures.

I have purposely kept my life outside of the classroom simple - I want to succeed in college and would like to live a healthy life. The nice thing about being at the college campus is that most people are more ambitious than at my high school. I really feel the difference in being around a better crowd much more tangibly than I would have imagined. This is not to say that the people I’ve met in college are completely shut-ins, but more a testament to the fact that this is the first group of people I have met that are both interesting to talk to and still serious about their studies.

I probably am not in the best place to give advice to future SGC students - I still don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. With that being said, letting things come naturally and not stressing out about things that can’t be controlled is the best advice I have heard about entering college.

Last modified: 13 December 2021