In the weeks leading up to my arrival at the University of Maryland, I tried not to set any concrete expectations because I wanted to be surprised by my experiences, but I couldn’t help myself from coming in with a few preconceived notions. Firstly, I thought that the classes here would be more of less exactly as they were in high school but was very surprised by my first few weeks of college classes. For years, every class I’ve had has had a maximum size of around thirty people, all sitting in a small classroom in the same place every day. Everyone was expected to show up every day (not that they shouldn’t now) and the lessons were heavily reliant on interacting with other students. Then, suddenly, the majority of the classes I’m taking are in giant lecture halls with hundreds of people. It was a jarring change of pace at first, trying to keep up with unrelenting lectures with no breaks or pauses, but over time, I got used to the new style of learning. There are still some classes, of course, that adhere to the more traditional high school set up of one teacher and twenty students in a classroom discussing the material instead of just listening to it. However, I currently only have one such class – that being English – because I’m a STEM major, and most STEM classes are primarily lecture based (some have discussions as well, but they’re run by TA’s, not teachers, so most just assign some kind of worksheet). Overall, I like the change of pace and the flexibility this new class structure provides. The freedom engrained in the system is sometimes helpful. For example, I recently had to build a truss for my mechanical engineering class, but the only time my group could access the woodshop conflicted with my chem class. In years past, this would have been a problem, but here, I was able to take as much time in the woodshop as I needed and watch a recording of my chem class in my dorm with my feet up and relaxed.
At the beginning of the semester, I knew we were going to cover the impact humans have had on earth’s biosphere, but I didn’t know how in-depth the course was going to go. I figured the class would reiterate much of what I already knew about the dangers and causes of climate change but, especially once we began The Sixth Extinction, we began discussing so many ecological factors of human existence that I was not aware of such as the impact of human globalization, Kolbert’s islands on dry land theory, etc. I did, however, expect that we would go more in-depth about energy production’s impact on the environment. This is a topic that I’ve always found very interesting, and one that connects closely with my major, so I was hoping we would take the time to discus it, but I’m sure we’ll delve into the topic at some point over the next three semesters.
The outside-of-classroom activities were another surprise that came along with CPSG, but one that has been more helpful than I anticipated. The transportation skills I learned during the metro scavenger hunt have been incredibly helpful during my brief tenure at UMD. I have been to D.C. twice now (outside of class activities), once to see a concert and once to watch a baseball game at Nationals Park (Go O’s). During both experiences, I traveled with people who had never ridden the metro and was able to guide them through the process and get us all to D.C. without any trouble.
Life on campus has been pretty similar to my expectations. I’m from Towson (about 45 minutes away from here), so I knew a lot of people coming in. I’m still good friends with most of the people I already knew, but I’m starting to see some of them less as I meet new people. Overall, I’m very happy with my living arrangement and social life. My roommate and I get along well, and I enjoy spending time with the friends I have here (They keep taking my money in poker, but I’ll get it back eventually).
The best advice I could give an incoming freshman (with my limited experience) is that you need to find a good balance between your work and your life outside of classes. So many of the people in my mechanics and chemistry classes are constantly doing work, and I think, in the long run, this is going to have a negative effect on their mental health and ruin their college experience. I think the best thing you can do is stay ahead of your work enough that you can eat dinner with friends every night, or watch your favorite team on the weekend, or join an intermural sport without letting all your responsibilities get the better of you – I know this is easier said than done, but if you can find a way, it’s imperative you do.