I must say that, reflecting on the past semester of college that I have gone through, I had a college experience that was nowhere near what I expected college to actually be. I was expecting my college experience to be completely devoted to academics and studying, and while that was a crucial part of my experience here and I have been dedicated to my studies, I have also had a tremendous amount of time to get to know the people around me and make memories with the friends that I have made.
In terms of my classes, they were not what I expected when going into college. Many of my classes, including ASTR288B, ASTR288I, GEOG140, and CHSE288D were all classes where I noticed there was very little homework and outside class work to do. While I do need to study for these classes and do have the occasional homework to do, a tremendous amount of the necessary work for the class was done during class time, which I did not expect. I expected to come into college and be constantly working for my classes around the clock, and that's nothing like what I experienced during these classes. Other courses such as ASTR120 and MATH140 were heavy on outside work, likely due to the fact that they were key classes for my astronomy major. These two classes made up most of my study and work time in and out of classes during my first semester of college. I expected these two classes to take up a majority of my time, but the sheer amount of time they took was surprising to me. I spend exponentially more time working on these two classes than I do in all of my other classes combined, simply because the course load is heavier and more intense due to their importance to my major. I was also surprised to have little to no long form projects over the whole semester, with there only being 3-4 combined from all of my classes. I expected to have many more projects to take on, but they never came, which surprised me a lot.
When looking at CPSG100 specifically, I found that I really enjoyed the out of classroom activities. Service Day was one of my favorite memories from Scholars, as it was a very memorable experience and I made a lot of friends that day. It was a different experience compared to many of the things I've done in college so far, and because of that it stands out and means a lot to me. The New York trip was also one of my fondest memories, as getting to hang out with friends and explore the history of the natural world was a combination of two of my favorite things, and getting to see the planetarium show was amazing. In terms of in class experiences, I really enjoyed looking at the history of extinctions and how the Earth has changed over time, and how life has adapted to the changing environment around it. I didn't expect for us to talk about logical fallacies and the method of scientific thinking, as I didn't realize that it would be related to the issue of climate change and the adaptation of life.
College life in general is much simpler and more relaxed than I thought it would be in high school. Going into college after high school I thought that I would be constantly jumping from place to place and working constantly on all of my classes, but I find now that there was much less constant working and a lot more relaxing and taking things slow. I got my work done on time and still had plenty of chances to hang out with friends and do what I wanted. I also found that I walk around campus a lot, much more than I ever expected that I would. I routinely track over 10,000 steps on my watch every day simply by going to classes, getting food at the dining halls, or going places to do things with my friends. I expected everything to be decently close, but now I realize how much walking you actually have to do on a college campus.
For any students incoming into the SGC Scholars program, I would tell them that having the Scholars community and all of the people around you is tremendously helpful in getting you used to college life, and to not let the help go to waste. I would make sure they meet lots of new people during their first semester or two of Scholars and to make connections with professors and students living around them, whether in the dorms or in classes. Additionally, I would tell them to spend a lot of time hanging out and learning with other people, as it makes the transition to living by yourself a lot easier, as the people you routinely meet with become sort of your college family and the ones you trust most. Lastly, I would recommend staying calm and not worrying too much about your work, as stressing out unnecessarily can be a tremendous detriment to you. If you stress out too much on your work, it’ll be so much harder to actually do the work, as you scare yourself out of performing well. Just stay calm, and everything will be fine.