Most of my classes were structured as lectures. A few of them had discussion sessions. My math class was everyday with lectures for three days and discussion for two days. I expected this from a math class, as I've always had math everyday of the week. My math class had a lot of graded items. We had two to three home works a week and two worksheets each week in discussion. About every other week we had a quiz. I expected this completely in a university math course. One thing I didn't expect from it though was that most of the material was surface level. It makes sense when I think about it since we are doing calc 1 in half a year versus one year. But I was originally surprised that I learned more in my calc class in high school than I did in college. My astronomy course was the one course with a different set up. Even though it was a lecture class, it was a flipped class. For this class we had pre-classes each week where we read and took notes on the textbook. We then took the pre-class quiz to see if we understood the material. Lectures were very different from what I have ever experienced. These lectures consisted of a nearpod where it was very interactive. We would complete two group activities on the white board each lecture. These activities consisted of mostly math equations related to the topic. For example, Hoffman transfers orbit and finds the density of the Sun. There were also poll questions on the nearpod about the topic covered in the reading. This class was extremely organized but also extremely fast paced. We went over two chapters a week. At the end of the week I had a discussion section where we got a worksheet to work on in our assignment groups. Another interesting thing about this class was because it was flipped midterms and now the final are open notes. Because of this, he made the questions extremely hard which I'm not sure if it is helpful or not. I also took a seminar class where speakers came in and we listened to their careers. I'd say that the workload in my classes was expected. Nonetheless, it has been very difficult to keep up with the workload, especially now during finals.
In CPSG100 we covered the scientific method and fallacies. I was not expecting this because the course was called science and global change. From the beginning, I was expecting to learn about climate change and environmental science. We also talked about the scientific toolbox and pseudoscience which was interesting. I wasn't expecting such a range of topics from this course. Despite this, I enjoyed learning about them, especially the pseudoscience presentation. I was expecting to explore more about climate change and environmental science. I am very interested in environmental science which is why I joined the program. Because I am a physics major, adding a class in environmental science would be difficult since I wouldn't gain any gen ed and it would probably hinder me from graduating in four years. We have started to learn about the past, like mass extinctions which was kind of interesting. However, I hope that we learn more about climate change and what people are doing to help slow it down. I would also like to learn about how the Earth is changing due to humanities stresses on the environment. The outside of the classroom activities are what I thought they would be like for the most part. I wasn't expecting so many quizzes but I guess it's one way to test our knowledge. Towards the end, we had to do a lot of our website things on our own which I really struggled with. I wish we did it more in class because I am not good with coding things. The excursions are what I expected. The excursion report was very in depth which I wasn't expecting. However, I understand that it's a graded assignment so that's why there were so many questions to answer and so much to pay attention to during the excursion. For future SGC students, I would say to make sure that the university has clubs you would like to join and to find a quiet place to work early on in the semester. Also, to stay organized and keep track of your assignments.
University life is really not what I envisioned. I thought that I would be able to make a lot of friends and form study groups with friends. I also thought that there would be a lot of clubs for me to join and meet people. I was very disappointed that there was no drop in dance classes. I love dancing but I don't have the skill or time commitment to join an on campus competition team. I am very upset that I can't bring my passion for dance to university. Also, I can't play my violin at university either. Only people in the music program can get a practice room. Since I have nowhere to practice, it seems I have to stop playing it all together which upsets me as well. Also, it has been very hard for me to find a quiet place to study. In high school I thought that the top floor of the library was supposed to be extremely quiet. Unfortunately, it is not and I waste much of my searching for a quiet area. Also, I thought that my professors would be around for office hours where I could ask for help. Unfortunately, most office hours are during my class times and half of the class is at them when I can go. This semester, I struggled to balance academic and non academic life. I wasn't able to look into clubs until the end of the semester, and by then I couldn't join many. I realized that the university doesn't offer extracurriculars that I want and I am struggling to find other ones. I was also disappointed that my roommate and I really aren't friends. I was looking forward to having a lifelong friend from my roommate but unfortunately I won't.