As my first semester as a college student comes to a close, I am realizing just how quickly these past few months have gone by. When I think back to the first few weeks of school, not only does it seem like much longer ago than only 3 months, but also seems different than college now. The start of the semester was incredibly overwhelming academically. After receiving the syllabi for all of my classes, I was overwhelmed with countless papers, exams, midterms, and project due dates. Additionally, I had yet to figure out how to use ELMS and other resources such as online textbooks and how to utilize office hours and guided study sessions.
However, within just a couple of weeks I had adjusted to this new type of education. Coming into college, I expected classes to be incredibly challenging. I soon learned that in reality, compared to high school ap classes, university classes are actually much easier, as long as the effort is put into them. By simply attending and paying attention to lectures coupled with completing all of the work assigned, it is made easy to pass any of the exams given. The most difficult part of my classes is simply staying on top of them and being organized. The actual material is not too difficult to learn, especially with the help of all of the available resources here.
This is especially true for the Science and Global Change colloquium. By simply paying attention in lectures, keeping up with the assigned readings, and completing all of the assigned work, such as the HTML codes, it is very easy to perform well on the quizzes. Furthermore, paying attention during lectures comes easy, as the lecture topics are usually interesting and very in depth. My personal favorite lecture was, “Modern Plesiosaurs, Ancient Astronauts, and Hollow-Earth Antarctic Space Nazis: the Lure and Lore of Pseudoscience”, despite the fact that this lecture did not at all consist of the type of material I expected to learn through the Science and Global Change program. Coming into Scholars, I expected to learn mainly about current climate change. I was expecting to study how we as humans are causing it, and what we can do to decrease the rate of climate change. Instead, this lecture went into depth explaining different mainstream conspiracy theories and then debunking them through the use of simple logic and scientific evidence. This lecture is similar to many others in the aspect that rather than learning and memorizing facts, we learned how to better think and formulate conclusions for ourselves.
On the other hand, the excursions turned out to be almost exactly what I expected they would be. I really enjoyed service day, and the experience was only heightened by the inclement weather we were hit with. The removal and relocation of the water lilies was an amazing memory I have of this semester. Getting covered in muddy water and sediment, while being drenched in the cold rain with everyone else in the program allowed me to form friendships I still have today, due to our shared hilarious experiences. This is exactly the advice I would give to any upcoming Scholars: Embrace Scholars and enjoy every moment of it, rather than stress over it and think of it as a required class. I have learned a ton in Scholars throughout the first semester, however I have not studied for the class once. The program is genuinely interesting and I have made many friends in it through different discussions and excursions.