As my first semester at the University of Maryland comes to an end the time has come to reflect upon it. Overall, I would say that I had an excellent time. Most of my classes turned out to be exactly as I expected. I will say that I was a little bit surprised when it came to how heavily some assignments counted towards my grade. However, for the most part, the workload was about what I expected. Something that I was prepared for but was still enamored by was the flexibility I had throughout the day. Due to the nature of some of my classes, I did not always have to go to lectures to get the information I needed to succeed. This allowed me to work between classes and continue to work during a class that I knew I could catch up with later. I took full advantage of this privilege and used it to make sure I was always ahead of where I needed to be in each of my classes while still maintaining good grades.
In regards to Science and Global Change specifically, I will say that I was quite surprised with how the class turned out. Something that we covered that I was entirely unprepared for was our deep dive into science and logical fallacies. In fact, a good portion of the semester was dedicated to exploring the nature of science and pseudoscience and deconstructing logical fallacies and how they work. To be clear, just because was not expecting these topics does not mean that I did not enjoy learning about them. In fact, the time we spent on logical fallacies may have been my favorite part of the semester. I did expect to get into global change more, but I now understand that those topics are saved for later semesters. I was also surprised by the excursions that we were given the ability to go on. I went to the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (which you can read about if you follow a separate link on my webpage) and enjoyed the experience a lot. However, there were other options and they were all interesting. I generally find the ability to learn while not at a desk to be automatically more engaging, so I find the excursions to be worth the time investment. With how my first semester has turned out, I can confidently say that I am very excited for how my next three semesters in this program will turn out.
Outside of the classroom, college has been an interesting transition. Most of my ideas for what college would be like were formulated through movies and TV shows. I had basically zero other reference points as I never asked anyone I knew about college. Needless to say, when I finally got the “college experience” I was surprised by how different it was from what I expected. To be more exact, I was surprised by how little anything changed. I had a very easy time adjusting to college because nothing really changed for me. I’d wake up, go to class, do my work, go to my next class, do more work, go to whatever club I had at the end of the day, and then I’d go to bed. Rinse and repeat, in and out, every week. It was shockingly similar to what high school was like for me, which probably says more about me than college itself. At the end of the day, nothing really changed for me. I can say confidently that this experience is not common. In fact, I would say that I adjusted unnaturally easily. Almost no one I know can say the same things that I said here. If you take anything from what I said here, remember that my experience is quite rare among college students.
With that being said I still do believe that I can give an incoming student valuable advice. Firstly, join a club. It does not matter what it is as long as it is something. Clubs are a great way to meet people, relax, build communities and relationships, and keep yourself occupied. Obviously joining a club requires balancing it with your schoolwork, but by the time someone is entering college they should be used to that. I would also recommend tailoring your schedule to yourself (to the best of your ability). If you do not like waking up early, do not choose to have early classes. I understand that this advice may sound a little brain-dead and that sometimes this is unavoidable, but you would be surprised at how many people I know that take classes at times that are incredibly inconvenient for them just because they did not think hard enough when constructing their schedules. As a final piece of advice I would suggest using this first semester to ease in. College is an experience and I would recommend taking things slow at first so you can get acclimated to the environment. It is more than just working but it is also less than just partying. Find a balance first, and then work from that baseline. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.