For what feels like my whole life, college was a goal far off in the future. Now, looking back, the time has flown by in a blur. Just a few short months ago, I was moving into my dorm at the University of Maryland and starting the Science and Global Change (SGC) Scholars program. Before I could truly settle in and embrace college life, the first semester is already finished. It has forced me to stop and reflect where all the time went. The reality of being a university student is definitely different, but in a good way, and these differences ended up being the best lessons.
When I first arrived at UMD, I did not have many specific expectations about my general university courses. I mostly assumed that professors would be a big deal based on the class and that exams would make up a large part of my final grade, which turned out to be true. Compared to high school, one of the biggest surprises was the amount of grading opportunities available. My college classes use a lot more small graded assignments and smaller projects, which gives me many chances to raise my grade if I struggle on a major exam. I also found the class schedules really interesting. For example, some classes, such as my biology course, meet four times a week between lectures and lab, while other classes, like my kinesiology class, only meet once a week, relying more on self-study time. Like I expected, I was responsible for using my resources and online work to teach myself some of the material rather than being spoon-fed like in high school. This was an adjustment for most of my classes. Additionally, I had expected an environment where some of my professors would lead small, focused lectures, similar to my advanced high school courses. The reality for a few of my classes was often a huge lecture hall with hundreds of students, which made personal contact much more difficult. This meant I was talking to the Teaching Assistants (TAs) for any questions.
The CPSG100 class was different compared to my general university classes. I came into SGC expecting to immediately start learning hard science like detailed climate modeling and atmospheric studies, but the class began by focusing on topics I never knew about nor thought I would study in the scholars program. For example, I did not expect to spend time learning about the different types of fallacies, but learning how to spot them in things I read and heard was helpful. Another thing I was not expecting to learn was to make our own digital portfolio using HTML code. Personally, I am not strong at coding, but having a working website to show my academic work and progress is actually really cool. Lastly, I was not expecting to discuss pseudoscience in class because I thought we would only stick to teaching real facts and data. Ultimately, these early lessons built a good foundation, and recently, we have started getting into the topics I initially expected, like real climate change data and atmospheric dynamics which is a good way to end the semester. Outside of the classroom, the required work for colloquium was also surprisingly manageable. For the most part, the outside-of-classroom activities and homework was based on a weekly discussion post. I really appreciated this because it allowed me to genuinely think about the material without the stress of constant, large projects. The light workload helped balance the heavy study required for my other classes. I also really enjoyed some of the outside-of-classroom activities. I had a great time going on the trip to Washington DC to the museum with my SGC peers. It was fun to experience things with new people. These activities made the learning feel real and offered a chance to bond with the other students in the program, making the experience feel like the positive community I had hoped for.
Beyond the classes, life as a student living in Cumberland Hall has been a mix of fun and bittersweet. Throughout high school, people told me that college was a lot more fun, and that has absolutely held true this semester. However, the biggest change for me is the amount of independence. This independence is both a good thing and a bad thing. I really love having the freedom to set my own schedule, decide when to eat, and choose how I want to manage my time and work. But this can also be a challenge because it means I can easily get distracted and lose track of time. Time management was a problem for me in high school and it has definitely gotten a little worse in college. It takes a lot more self-discipline than I realized to stay on track. Additionally, in high school, I had known most people since elementary school, so the idea of moving to college and starting all over again to make new friends seemed very daunting and a little scary at first. Putting myself out there has been hard at times, but it has been rewarding to meet new people. My new friendships have been one of the highlights of the semester. The one high school expectation that was hard to meet was getting involved. I expected to jump right into clubs and organizations immediately, but it is much harder than I thought. There are a lot of people competing for spots, and sometimes my class schedule conflicts with the meeting times, making it difficult to hold myself accountable for showing up every week. In terms of academics, I feel lucky that my workload wasn't too bad this semester, which gave me time to adjust to everything, although I know next semester will be much harder.
If I could give advice to the next group of SGC students, it would be to use your TAs and not be afraid to ask for help, especially as a freshman. The TAs are your best friends in those big lecture classes. They are the ones who can actually help you understand the hard homework and they want you to succeed. Secondly, even if you are nervous, you must try to get involved. The structure of college means you have to put in the effort to meet people and find help. Don't wait for things to happen to you, you have to make them happen, especially during the first semester.