When I came to UMD to begin my first semester, I was nervous and scared. I had no idea what to expect from my classes, how my professors were gonna be, if the homework was gonna be different, and many, many more concerns. But finishing up my first semester here, I've been pleasantly surprised. Most of my classes (excluding CPSG) have been lectures where I have just taken notes and then went over them myself or with a friend later to study. But I was expecting about as much in terms of how my classes themsleves would be structures. For graded items like homework, I had no idea what to expect; I knew it would be different from the daily assignments I received in high school, but I was nervous that entire first week of classes. But I was pleased to find that assignments were not a daily occurance like in high school; another thing that pleasantly surprised me was that I had a lot more free time than I was used to in the beginning of the semster to do my assignments. Obviosuly, as the semester went on, my schedule began to fill up but still, the ability to really create my own schedule and not have the same regimented one every single day was something I enjoy about being in college. The information that I learn in my classes are of course more in depth and analytical than anything I did in high school- I expected as much- but I was initially scared that I would struggle to keep up with so many varying classes and areas of information. But my professors delivered the information in a way that made it easy to digest and seemed like I was just listening to a lecture and absorbing the information naturally, not like a talk-and-write-down-everything-to-memorize-later kind of situation like most high school classes. In CPSG, especially, the class covers new information every week that goes in depth, but I never feel overwhelmed by the amount of information being presented to me at once because it often just feels as if I am listening to a lecture and learning the information naturally. The topics covered in CPSG surprise me sometimes; we delve into topics that don't often come to mind when you think of 'global change' big picture, but it's taught me that there are so many aspects of science and human interactions/societies that go into every little change in our climate or our global cultures. Additionally, delving into these topics and talking about how everything affects each other, I've learned that just as we affect our environment and the world around us and the climate, the relationship runs both ways. The climate, our environment, etc. all affects us and how we live and structure our societies That is not a lesson that I expected to be emphasized in scholars; I imagined the class as more of a hard science class that just presents you with the facts and you have to learn them. I am excited for when we explore more into the current climate change itself and how it has affected us already and how it will in the future if it gets worse (or, hopefully better). But scholars is unique in it's addition of out-of-classroom activities intertwined with the class discussions and lectures. The out-of-class activities help bring everything we learn in lecture together and provides an opportunity for us to look at things big-picture to fully be able to understand the complex things we discuss in class. But as mentioned before, I was nervous about many aspects of college life before coming to UMD; having a roomate, lviing in a dorm, using a communal bathroom, etc. But while living in Centreville has been eventful to say the least (what with flooding laundry machines, exploding water pipes, and the many, many, burnt-popcorn fire scares), it has not been as difficult to transition to dorm-life as I thought it would have been. I love university life much more than I enjoyed 'high-school life'; I was scared that the harder material and assignments would make college just plain hard, but being able to study classes I chose, and for topics I enjoy/am interested in, the assignments and the information does not seem as difficult or weighing. Figuring out how to balance hobbies/free-time with school work was a bit of a learning curve in the first couple of weeks, especially as my schedule began to slowly fill up and I had to adjust my schedule many times, but it was key to being able to fully take advatange of and enjoy university life, and the best advice I can give to any future SGC student. I'm excited for where my future semesters will take me!