As I finish my first semester of college, I can say that my transition has gone quite well and that ,for the most part, my expectations have been fulfilled. Adjusting to college was difficult for the first couple of weeks because all of my closest friends went to different schools. It was also challenging for me to return to classwork because I hadn't completed any assignments since May. I completed 5 classes, and 13 credits, this semester and saw a lot of changes from high school.
Overall, the course structures were what I had anticipated. Similarly to high school, we learn a couple of topics and then are tested on the material that was covered. One noticeable difference, however, is I took significantly more quizzes this semester than I have in any high school semester. In almost all of my classes, I had a quiz weekly, while in high school the class I took the most quizzes in was AP Statistics, where I had biweekly quizzes. Except for African American Studies, each of the courses I took matched my expectations of how a college course would be delivered. While I do believe African American studies was a worthwhile course, the class was strictly the teacher reading off a slideshow presentation. I find this hard to engage and follow along in the class because there is nothing that resonates with me, I just write down exactly what is written on the slides. Additionally, the graded assignments for each course met my expectations. The grading system was similar to high school where homework assignments were the lowest weighted, while tests had the most drastic impact on grades. A noticeable difference in grades however is that there are many different categories for each class. In high school, there were only two categories, practice/preparation which included homework and assignments graded for completion, and all task assignments which included quizzes and tests, as well as all other assignments graded for accuracy.
I didn’t expect to cover rocks and fossils because in high school I took AP Environmental Science and it was a topic we didn’t cover. So far, SGC and APES have covered fairly similar topics, but this one did not align among the classes. As a result, I also expected to have covered El Niño and La Niña, as well as tectonic plates in SGC. I do think they will get covered in the coming semesters, but just were not discussed in semester one. The outside-the-classroom activities exceeded my expectations. In high school, I didn’t have any field trips, so it was a nice surprise to have excursion trips in SGC. The quizzes were short and covered what we went over in class.
University life matched my high school expectations of college life. I anticipated that juggling my social life and school would be challenging, but I've managed to strike a healthy balance. Because I already had friends from high school who lived in the building, living in Centreville has been pleasant. Despite the size of the campus, I think Centreville is an excellent place to live because everything is so easily accessible. All of the buildings I need to get to are within a 10-minute walk, except for the discussion in my English class on Friday.
I would advise future SGC students to create a schedule for themselves and stick to it. One thing I did this semester that helped a lot was creating a schedule for myself over the summer and it helped me stay organized and manage my time. I also recommend joining clubs and going to events. Through this, I have learned a lot about myself and from others. I was able to talk to a lot of college juniors and seniors and they have taught me a lot about classes and how to do well in school. Another thing I recommend is asking for help and going to office hours. This is something that I did not take advantage of as I should have, but when I did go to office hours my professors were extremely helpful. Lastly, I would recommend choosing your classes wisely. If possible, choose classes in time slots that you will be able to wake up for and are not all back to back. Besides Fridays, my earliest class was 11 am which allowed me to get enough sleep and have enough time to get ready in the morning. I recommend minimizing consecutive classes because having an hour and a half of classes right after each other was very tiring considering I had 10 minutes in between classes and that time was spent walking to my next class.
Overall, I had a great experience in my first semester of college. I met a lot of new people, will most likely be making Dean’s list, and have learned a lot about both myself and my major.