No high school can match a research university’s academic breadth and scope. Not counting your Scholars colloquium, which course or courses came as the greatest revelation or surprise to you? How did you discover them and what strategies might incoming students pursue to experience similar surprises? Personally, I had research experience before college years so I was able to expect what I experience in freshman year in high school. However, there is one thing I found surprising about my experience and recommend it to incoming freshman possibly. I joined SALC, student alumni leadership council, in spring 2022, and so far it is the best decision I ever made. As a bioengineering major, I typically spend a lot of time with the people from engineering department. In SALC, I was able to work with people at UMD from various major and school, getting exposed more diverse community. I did not expect myself to be part of something that is completely different from what I want to do in the future, and I actually got to enjoy the experience. Another surprise I had was the supporting community at UMD, especially the support from department for engineering school. As a engineering student and bioengineering major, I get to be part of various meetings and advising that is really helpful for me to find my career path. The chance to develop mentoring relationships with faculty is a unique university opportunity. Describe your greatest success in developing strong relationships with faculty members and the greatest obstacles to achieving this. How do you recommend that incoming students pursue such relationships? I have been having great relationships with most of the professors I had in the first and second semester. I didn’t necessarily intend to have good relationships, but I am so glad that I was able to have some of the best ones. One of the relationship I have with professors is the one with Dr. Young from ENES102, an engineering mechanics class. I was so bad at physics, and it was the class I actually started to enjoy physics and engineering nature.
Adjusting to the university is not easy. How have your relationships with fellow students enabled you to cope with the adjustment? What are the greatest obstacles in pursuing these relationships? How can next year’s freshmen make the best use of their connections with their peers? I think I definitely struggled a lot with getting adjusted to college at first. I never really lived away from my parents, and it was interesting experience to live with someone that you don’t know that well in the same environment, especially in the same room. However, I was really lucky to meet people whio are so willing to share their lives with me. I met my boyfriend, who is also my current best friend, and also peer mentor group that we hangout in small groups sometimes, and they are all emotionally, mentally supporting me a lot. I think the greatest obstacle in not only relationship with other people but general college life is that it is so hard to accept that you are not the best person in the world. It is very hard to get all 4.0 gpa, and it is hard to get every single position you applied to. It is just the fact, but it takes a long time to accept. If I can give freshman an advice for next year, be ready for heartbreak, but we still need to work on things! There are a lot of stressful things in college, but it gets really fun at the same time.
For what aspects of university academic life were you, in retrospect, least prepared? How do you recommend that prospective students and incoming freshmen prepare to address these issues when their turn comes? I think I was more prepared in high school about the academic life than the freshman year of college. I think I got a burnout after college admission process and thought I will be able to just do whatever at UMD. Now I can definitely tell that is not happening. I was not mentally prepared at all for college. For the prospective students, they should be ready with workloads that might overload them.