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Going into college I wasn’t really expecting much of a change from high school. Having been in a particularly annoying magnet program in high school, I had been hoping I wouldn’t be as inundated with homework once my college years began, but honestly wasn’t expecting much of a change. That being said, I’m pleased to be able to say that my homework demand has actually lessened dramatically from high school to college, with homework now feeling more manageable, and, importantly, more valuable. In general projects and homework, as well as work in class tended to feel much more intentionally directed towards improving my learning than just giving me busy work to fill out a grade book. In particular, computer science projects were a virtually weekly homework assignment, but were always a direct implementation of concepts we had learned in class, rather than the exercise in documentation reading I had often been forced to work through in high school (not a worthless exercise necessarily, but an undeniably annoying one to be graded on). However, while homework felt much more gratifying that stressful and upsetting in the transition from high school to college, exams had an opposite shift. With fewer, more heavily weighted exams per class than in high school, every exam took on much more weight, making them feel much more stressful, and thus much more difficult to take. This wasn’t helped by my sub-par studying habits coming into college, having basically never studied in high school, often forgetting about exams entirely until the day of, I didn’t really study as I should have in the beginning of the year, resulting in my receiving some test grades below what I had been aiming for. That problem, thankfully, I feel I have been doing a good job of remedying following my harsh lesson in the consequences of under preparedness. Overall, I’d say college classes have surpassed my expectations in terms of their value, with the most surprising thing about them being how much I genuinely feel I’ve been learning throughout the semester, a feeling I attribute to the faster pace of the classes. While this faster pace of classes definitely made learning, particularly in lecture, more difficult, the ability to re-watch lecture recordings online definitely made up for the harder to follow lectures, and the pace of the classes meant they never felt painfully stagnant the way many high school classes, even at the AP level, often ended up feeling.

Honestly, very few of my feelings on my other classes carry over to Scholars. With only one lecture a week and easily manageable homework demands, the class never felt demanding. That’s not to say it lacked value for me though. The lectures surprised me with how much they focused on basic scientific and logical principles over discussions of global change, the name of the program, but were none the less interesting explorations of the mechanisms that underly the STEM fields I’m interested in. That being said, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more excited for future semesters of colloquium that will focus more on the details of global change, the topic I find interesting and important enough to join a program named for it. Focusing less strictly on academics, Scholars as a whole has been a surprisingly fun experience. Coming from a high school magnet program I whole-heartedly hated, I hadn’t had high expectations for scholars coming into the university, especially upon learning of service day, which I would sardonically refer to as a “swamp trudging day” when mentioning it in conversation. Surprisingly though, service day ended up being a lot of fun, even despite quite literally involving trudging through swampy little ponds, and the rest of the program has been fun as well. While I didn’t go on any organized excursions, I appreciated being able to use a trip to the National Zoo with my family as an excursion, and actually found looking into the design and messaging of the zoo for writing the excursion report more interesting than I’d been expecting. I don’t think I’ll ever refer to Scholars as a life-changing experience, but it’s certainly been a nice addition to my college experience, and I anticipate it will continue to be so.

Unlike with academics, coming into university I had decidedly negative expectations for my college living situation. Living in a single room with a roommate seemed unappealing after having lived in apartments and homes with my family for my entire life. But the dorms actually ended being quite nice, with their small space proving sufficient for supporting my lifestyle, the bathrooms being well upkept and available, and me and my roommate getting along fine enough not to ever really bother each other. College life has shown me that I can live comfortably and happily on a much smaller scale than I had at any point before in my life. Also my dorm has air conditioning, so that’s pretty cool 😊. The eating situation likewise ended up being much better than I had expected, with the dining halls, particularly Yahentamitsi, having a wide selection of good food available daily. Coming from high school, I had honestly been expecting to eat food only slightly better than the food served at my high school cafeteria at the dining halls, and am very happy to have been proven wrong. Living at the university has been a much better experience than I had been expecting going in, and has honestly been a very formative experience helping me to understand what I value in a living space and what it is that really makes me happy about where I live. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my family, with visits being difficult at a three-hour drive distance, but that experience as an overall has still been positive.

Personally, I don’t really think I’m qualified to give advice to anyone coming into college. All of it still feels very new to me, even after an entire semester, and I don’t consider myself particularly wise or knowledgeable about life. That being said, I’d generally advise someone first coming into SGC to focus on their academics and try and enjoy the experience of college. And study for tests from the beginning. Seriously, failing tests that you think you’re going to do well on will make you upset in the short term and paranoid in the long term. Take initiative in ensuring your own success, and don’t view your learning as a chore.