Going into the summer before the first semester of college, I was eager to leave my high school past and enter college. However, when I believed the pandemic would be all gone by the time I went to campus, life would go back to normal. I was wrong. The pandemic would continue to spread, and I would be forced to go all online. Upon starting my online college experience, I was worried and did not know what to expect from these classes. However, I found the delivery of some of my classes to be quite pleasant. Classes that went asynchronous could be easily pushed around and completed when I had free time instead of a set schedule. I could spend a day completing projects or studying for an exam, or I could spend a day watching lectures and attending the few synchronous meetings I had to participate in. However, this sometimes was a double-edged sword. I sometimes ended up procrastinating on lectures and falling behind in class. My math class was Math141 or Calculus II. Going into the course, everyone kept telling me how difficult it was and how many kids failed this class multiple times. I had taken AP Calculus BC in high school but was unable to perform on the AP exam, so I came into the class knowing more than most of my other peers. The class lectures and discussions were what I expected for an online course and were not too stressful. The homework was wholly manageable, and with me working ahead, it never got ahead of me. The exams were what I expected for an advanced calculus course, and I did not do too bad on them. I wonder what my final grade in this class will be as the last exam did not go too well, but I wonder what future I will get and think about when he gets his final grade for the course. My computer science class began very well as I have always considered myself strong in computer science, and I was doing quite well. However, I messed up on two exams, which has my grade at 93.16. I hope future me can maintain the A and perform well on the final as I would be quite upset if I did not possess an A in the class. The study has been a lot more work in geography than I expected from a general education class. Still, it has honestly not been difficult, and I should maintain an A in that class and long as I don't screw up the exam on Monday. I have never been strong at English, but for some strange reason, I have a 96 in English 101 right now, granted. She hasn't put in too many essays yet, but I hope to hold on to an A in that class. I would be honestly ecstatic if I got straight A's first semester though I know it's likely that I get an A- in a couple of these classes. In high school, I never had straight A's and always got an A- or a B+ somewhere, so this would be big news. The main reason behind this thinking is I need to maintain above a 3.5 GPA to get into the combined BS/MS program. I hope my future self obtains this goal and maybe even laughs at my crazy freshman antics. As for CPSG100, we covered a lot of stuff about Science, which I did not expect. I forgot that it was called SCIENCE and global change. I was expecting more global warming stuff and how we can like to combat global warming. I did not have any outside of classroom activities, other than maybe virtually visiting the Smithsonian. I was really looking forward to the fossil hunting field trip and hope we can still get that in the fall or something. I may go down to the zoo or visit the Smithsonian if it's open in the spring. Life as a university student obviously is much different from what I was picturing before the summer started and graduated from college. I obviously didn't expect to walk around my house and just join calls from time to time. I mean, I didn't really feel like I was apart of campus, but I am faithful that the next 3.5 years will be much better. If I were to give advice to future SGC students, it'd be to study hard early so that you can relax near the end. I'd also tell them to get involved in the early UMD sponsored game nights and what not because I have met so many new people through these events. Overall, I am not too disappointed with what's going on. It will make a cool story to tell my future kids and others. When things go down, usually they bounce back higher with much more excitement, and I look forward to what's to come.
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