Outside of CPSG100, my classes have generally been what I expected. In my oral communication class I’ve written and given several speeches, learned about communication styles, and its generally been laid back. That’s about what I was expecting, and I’m thankful the workload wasn’t crazy. My Stat400 class on the other hand, was much different than I thought. We not only look into stats, but we have had several graded R (a programming language) projects that I’ve spent so much time on. The hardest aspect of that class was that many of these projects were group projects. I heard group projects were bad in college, but I did not think they would be this dreadful. Getting everyone to participate, especially before the last minute, is probably harder than any of the projects themselves. I also didn’t really understand the Lecture/Discussion sections of courses until I was actually in them. My stat discussion was less of a discussion, and more of the poor TA trying to tell us how to do the incredibly difficult homework. But overall, things haven’t been too outside what I expected. I’m sure things might change as I start moving from the introductory level courses in my major. I also have seen some rather interesting courses that fulfill some general education requirements, so if I ever take those, I’m not sure I’d even have expectations to be broken.
CPSG100 has been very different than I expected. I was not expecting to cover logical fallacies and all the introspection about what Science actually is. I was more expecting to learn directly about climate change and ways to prevent or mitigate it. I know that later semesters deal with this, but I was honestly a little let down this semester. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the service day, so I only have the DC trip and the NYC excursion to talk about in terms of outside-of-classroom activities. I didn’t really enjoy the DC trip because I didn’t connect with the people in my group, and it felt a bit like a chore with some strangers. The New York trip was pretty fun because it was actually my first time in New York City. I haven’t really connected with the people in my colloquium the way I was hoping to, but its okay.
Coming into college, I obviously expected things to be different from high school. But I didn’t quite realize how big of a difference living on campus would make. The biggest change would be how closely intertwined my life and academics have become. In high school, school stayed at school (besides homework of course), and I had a sort of separation between my personal life and my academic life. This semester has been a stark contrast to that. Living in the same few mile radius where I do schoolwork, march in the band, and live my personal life has really been strange, but kind of reassuring to me in the sense that I’ll be prepared when I move away from home. I liked living in Centreville because it had AC, which was nice, and it was decently close to my computer Science classes. I didn’t really make connections to the people on my floor all that much, but a few of my friends from high school live here too, and it’s very nice to see them and interact with them on a regular basis.
Since I’ve only gone through a single semester of college here, I’m not sure If I’m the most qualified to offer advice, but There are certainly a few things I’ve learned. One of the most important things to do in college, is to find a group of people you gel with. They might be the people on your floor, a study group, people in the band, or even just people in your SGC colloquium. Regardless of where they come from, having that support structure is essential. Having a group of people that make you laugh, support you when you’re down, and can hang out in a non-academic context makes things much easier on you. On top of that, I would say make sure you develop good habits early in the semester. This means don’t skip classes, do your work before the day its due, eat 3 meals a day, and make sure you get some outside time. That last one is important, because some days it’s easy to get caught up in work and stay cooped up inside. On top of that, I would also say it’s absolutely imperative you take care of your mental health. As I stated, if you live on campus your academics and social life can blend together. It can be easy for one to start consuming your time and interfering with the other. Although you should try to keep up with schoolwork, your mental wellbeing should always come first.