It's fair to say that this year has been unexpected for all of us. This is certainly not how I pictured my life eight months ago, but regardless; I have made it through the semester. Aside from classes being online this semester, college courses have pretty much been what I expected. I knew to expect a heavier workload and the need to rely on myself more for time management. I was lucky enough to have two in person/hybrid classes, which was an interesting experience given social distancing measures. Sitting and standing six feet apart from my peers and having discussions with them from a distance felt really new and uncomfortable. A fair amount of my classes are asynchronous, which is also much different from what I expected because I have always relied on the structure of a school day, or at least having a class schedule. I thought that I would get a little bit more of this from college classes so that I could plan my studying around my lectures, but I have found myself struggling more with time management in my asynchronous classes. In comparison with high school, the workload is a lot heavier, but this was something I anticipated before my arrival at UMD. It has been fairly difficult for me to adjust to the pace at which material is introduced, but overall, the biggest transition for me has been the transition to online learning. I think as a whole, our freshman class has been doing pretty well with what we have been given.
College Park Scholars has honestly not been exactly what I expected. The beginning of the semester was primarily focused on critical thinking and skepticism. This information is obviously applicable to the study of science and global change (as well as all other science courses), but I didn't expect to learn it in this class. I especially did not expect to spend so much time on it. Although I found the Science Fiction lecture fascinating, I also did not expect to talk about that in this course. However, I have always been a fan of the genre, so it was really interesting to connect it to what we were learning in regard to science and global change. A colloquium I found especially interesting was one where we talked about how Earth's climate has impacted human societies throughout time (from the Medieval Warm Period up until present day). I hope that next semester, we talk more about the specifics of climate change and the effects that it has on human cultures. I was expecting to learn more about the details of climate change in regard to subjects like greenhouse gases and anthropogenic causes of climate change. We did discuss this topic in the beginning of the semester, but I expected it to be more of a focus than it was. This topic is really interesting to me, so I hope that it's something we talk about next semester.
Throughout high school, I had always expected that I would go to college out of state, so University of Maryland is not where I thought I would be. I also thought that I would be living in Centreville, to the point where I had filled out the housing application and even found a roommate. I made the last-minute decision to stay home for both health and financial reasons. This has been the single most unexpected event that University life has thrown me since the beginning of the pandemic, which started during the college decision process. It has been difficult adjusting to spending so much time at home. My younger brother is doing school remotely and my mother is teleworking, so it has been a big adjustment for all of us. Living on campus was a big part of my vision and my dream for college, so living at home isn't something I was prepared for. In the long run, I think it's the right decision because it is safer for myself and my family, and it's more financially beneficial to us. I sincerely hope that things will be better next year, but I am prepared to spend the next few semesters at home if need be.
Coronavirus aside, my best advice to future SGC students would be to prepare themselves for the unexpected. Keep an open mind for college and the rest of your future because it will make you more open to adapting to change. No matter what you think college will be like, it's most likely going to be something you won't understand until you experience it. Everyone experiences university life differently, so it's best to be ready for anything. Looking back, I wish I had idealized college less, especially the "college experience" and the independence I would get from leaving home. I think so many people idealize these parts of their experience, which makes it easy to get let down when things turn out differently. Another piece of advice I have is not to be too hard on yourself. Your grades are very important, but they aren't everything. If you didn't have this mindset in high school, it's time to try to adopt it. It's important to give your all in school, but your health, both physical and mental, needs to come first.