As a first year college student arriving from a year and a half of virtual learning, I honestly had no idea what to expect. Well, I guess I had a few ideas of how things should generally work, but a lot of this new world was left to simply be explored and discovered. I very quickly learned that there was much less guidance here on campus than highschool, which I guess I wasn't quite expecting. Yes, I knew that we would have far more freedom in this college environment than in grade school, and I may be one of the few who have this opinion, but I feel as though I was just dropped into a new world and told to relearn every way in which I go about my life. I'm not really sure what I was "expecting" per say, but I most definitely didn't think I would feel completely lost for about 2 weeks. Despite this, I think my adjustment time may have still been faster than some. I got to come onto campus a week early because I'm in the marching band (which was super nerve racking) and in that time I met some really fun and inspiring upperclassmen who really helped create a sense of normal within the chaos.
In terms of the nature of my classes, college marching band is so insanely different from high school. In high school, our marching band would meet about twice a week and we would work on a single show that we would perform multiple times at competitions. In college, we meet up to 5 times a week and each week we learn a different show that we perform a single time as a halftime show during the football games. I wouldn't say I enjoy one version better than the other, as they both have their quirks and charms, but I was not expecting college marching band to be this way in the slightest. Similarly, I wasn't expecting a lot of my classes to be the way they are. One would think that 200 level courses would be more difficult than 100 level courses, but that really just is not the case (unfortunately). I got placed out of all 100 level biology courses required for my major and the 200 level biology course I'm in is exponentially more reasonable than any of the 100 level courses I'm in. Chem131(and 132) is by far the most unreasonable class I've ever taken, and sometimes it feels like they almost want you to fail. There are seniors in my chemistry class who claim they have never taken a class this difficult and unreasonable. I cannot wait to put this class behind me and be done with it, and I expected to enjoy chemistry.
I joined the scholars program for a few reasons. I was excited to meet like minded individuals and possibly make new friends to help the transition to this new life. I was also pretty interested in the topic of science and global change and thought it would be a fun learning experience. I had heard about the extra events and activities that we got to do as part of the program and I really looked forward to them. Unfortunately, I was not expecting that marching band would get in the way of most of the activities. I had to miss out on the introduction night that kicked off the program as well as the service activity the following day, both of which I was really excited to attend. The excursion I was planning to go on also got canceled and the other ones were already full or conflicted with marching band, so I had to do an online excursion which was neat but probably not as cool as fossil hunting on a cliff beach. Now this is not to say that I have regrets for joining the marching band, as although it takes a lot of my free time it's also been a fantastic experience for me. I just wish the stars had aligned for me to attend some of these scholar activities that I had to miss. In terms of content in CPSG, I would have never expected we would learn HTML code and make a website. As frustrating as its been, as I most definitely am not a computer science major, I think what I've learned is a pretty valuable skill. And even though most of what I've created was made using templates and tutorials, I'm still kind of proud of it. I guess I was expecting there to be a little more about, well you know, science and global change, but we're still very early in the program and the last few lectures have started to explore that topic.
University life is so much different than I had expected. I thought I was a pretty well rounded individual who knew enough about the world to live by myself, and I'd say I was mostly right. I knew this whole transition would be difficult, and it was, but now that I've settled in and gotten into a nice schedule, I'd still say this was different than I had expected. It's really hard to describe what I thought this would be like, but I guess I'd say things are just different. I had no idea what to expect when dealing with a roommate, but I'm happy to say that we get along well and are pretty similar. In the end, University life is not the hardest change to get used to for me. I think I'm pretty good at dealing with the minor inconveniences that come with living in a dorm building and I'm honestly enjoying my time here. Now, I'm also equally excited to go home for winter break and spend time with my family, I cannot wait for that.
To the future SGC students, please please PLEASE, get into good time management habits and develop that skill. It has been so important for my mental health to be able to sit down and organize everything I need to get done as well as plan out time for me to take care of myself. Self care is so important when you're effectively living at school. Everyone needs a little time away from an academic environment and sometimes it feels hard to find the time to do that, but if you work on your time management skills and really plan out your self care, I guarantee your mental state will be much more stable and you will overall succeed more in this environment.
And that concludes the summary of my expectations before and during my life here at the University of Maryland. There were many things that did not surprise me, yet at the same time there were so many things I never could have imagined.