Of my classes this year, I feel that they have been pretty aligned with my expectations of University courses. However, one thing did catch me off guard, and that was grading curves. In several classes, getting a grade such as a 50 or 60 is the norm, whereas in high school these grades would be frowned upon. I didn’t expect professors and classes to compensate so heavily for the increased level of difficulty that’s present in college-level classes. In addition, I wasn’t accustomed to the structure and delivery in college. There is a very straightforward lecture-discussion routine that I had never seen before, and I actually really enjoy it. One thing that was a pleasant surprise was that professors are mostly relaxed and easy to talk to. Obviously they’re very professional and smart but they aren’t rude about it and most of them will hear you out and not treat you like you’re below them.
Something that we covered in class that I didn’t expect us to was the medieval era information and the medieval warm. Even though it was towards the end of the semester it was still surprising and interesting to cover. In general there wasn’t anything that we didn’t explore that I was hoping for, but I thought we might involve dinosaurs and fossils a little bit more than we did.
My University student life is pretty similar to my high school vision of college life. This is mainly due to the large independence factor that I had always looked forward to. If you really want to, you can stay in bed all day and sleep. On the other hand, you can hang out with friends whenever you want to, or even take a trip to DC if you so please. You make your own schedule and manage your own time. I knew this would be this way but living it out has been a little bit different. For example, sometimes I need to remind myself to eat my meals during the day because sometimes I forget. Also things like doing laundry and washing my dishes is something to get used to.
Some advice I’d give future SGC students in order to ease them into college life is to always go to lectures. Not even just our weekly scholars meetings, but go to all your lectures and don’t think of one class as more important than others, because that one class will come back to bite you. Another piece of advice I would give future SGC students is to manage your time wisely. Now this might sound like common sense, which it is, but you really need to take time management seriously when it comes to college education. Due dates are very strict and pretty much never get pushed back. So set aside time for each class and its respective classwork and homework so you don’t fall behind. As soon as you fall behind is when things get stressful. So I would say to do your work ahead of time if possible, and don’t let overdue assignments linger over a long time or it will hurt your grade, and as a result, stressing about that grade will decrease your academic performance as a whole.
There were many difficulties this semester so far. The first one was spraining my ankle the week we moved in, which immobilized me and made my first couple weeks less than fun. However, I moved on from that and was able to make a lot of new friends from my floor, classes, and at the gym. My team is actually competing for the 5v5 basketball championship on December 7th! A year ago, my high school senior self wouldn’t believe that I was branching out and doing things like I have in college, so that is something that I have become proud of.
This might not sound genuine, but one of my main highlights was actually going to the National Museum of Natural History on December 2nd. Going into it I was just frustrated that I had to be awake earlier than I wanted to be on a weekend. But I actually ended up having a great time. After completing the questions and notes I would need for the excursion report, I ended up exploring pretty much every exhibit and it was just nice to be alone and enjoy the museum. Sometimes since I grew up in MD I take for granted that we have DC so close to us, but this trip to the national mall and NMNH was truly enjoyable and I even got to visit my cousin after for lunch since he goes to Catholic University in DC!
Overall, I feel like my first semester in scholars, and college in general has been productive and enjoyable. I have made more friends than I thought I would and actually don’t dread going to class (most days). I’m looking forward to next semester and the rest of my four years here.