Sharon Oh's "Expectations vs. Reality" Reflection Essay

As the temperature drops and more people book up rooms at McKeldin Library, it reveals it is the end of a semester. Especially for me it is the end of my first semester of college. As a college freshman I have had a lot of opportunities to grow and learn throughout my first semester. Life as a college student was definitely different from high school for both social and educational reasons. Both of which have benefits and drawbacks.

The classes I have taken this semester are Urban Agriculture: Designing and Assessing Edible Landscapes (LARC151), Academic Writing (ENGL101), Calculus I (MATH140), College Park Scholars: Science and Global Change (CPSG100), Bits and Bytes of Computer and Information Sciences (CMSC100), and Oral Communication: Principles and Practices (COMM107). The nature of these classes are all different because some required quizzes and textbook readings, while others emphasized the importance of group work and exams, and finally others focused on papers. I expected my University courses to be much more work instead of what it felt like, which was busy work. I thought that the courses that I took this semester felt like it was an ordinary semester in high school. As well as that I felt like lectures were much more different than in high school because in high school, if we were on our phones or were distracted since it was a smaller environment, we were reprimanded for not listening to the teacher. However, I prefer the format of lectures in that I am not called on during class because I experienced a lot of anxiety regarding that during high school. The required graded items are very different because sometimes the items are graded solely on completion, while at other times, the items can be graded on accuracy. Although it is explicitly stated in the syllabus, it can be a little tricky to remember for every class.

For CPSG100 specifically, some of the material that I did not expect to cover in this class would include logical fallacies, and more historical aspects that we have covered. Although the historical aspects make sense in order to understand why the climate is changing, I did not expect it. On the other hand, logical fallacies were something I had not even heard of prior to this class. Due to this fact, it was interesting to learn about however there were many logical fallacies to the point in which it is hard to memorize all of them. I expected to learn more regarding climate change especially because this program is called science and global change. As well as that I expected to learn more about scientific reasons instead of learning about historical aspects. Although the historical aspects are just as important as the scientific reasons. Especially because this is the so-called introduction class, I understand why everything that we have discussed this year felt more like background information. The outside-of-classroom activities are much more exciting. During my high school years, we rarely had field trips so the excursion to different places is much more interesting and a nice reason to leave the campus. I specifically went on the excursion to the Philip Merrill Environmental Center in which I thought it was interesting how it was formatted. Specifically the fact that Dr. Holtz drove us in a University van, which was surprising to me.

My university life is nothing like my high school vision of college. First, the weekdays and weekends feel like two different parts of my life. While I did anticipate work, it was never to this extent in which I would be staying up multiple nights doing homework solely for one class. As well as that, I never would have anticipated that the only way I would reward myself for the hard work on weekdays is through the weekend. Whether it was finally being able to get away from school work or just being able to hang out with friends without having school on the back of my head was the difference between this. Especially as last year was online, this was a good way in which I was able to catch up on social life and meet new people yet hang out with friends I did not get to hang out with as much.

To future SGC students, I would recommend getting a good sense of time management. As well as time management, it is important to find a space that you would dedicate to school work and another space where you would dedicate to sleep and downtime. In other words dedicate your dorm to being a space solely to relax while utilizing places such as the library in order to concentrate and get work finished. And even though it is only a couple of days, the first weekend or first couple of days will be a little awkward in that, everyone is transitioning into college life which is the life in which it feels like a constant sleepover. Finally make sure to get your work done before the weekend because it is quite rewarding to have no work due on the weekends and to be able to relax or catch up on sleep.

Overall I do enjoy university life, however the impact that Coronavirus has had on it changes it a little. Although I can be seen doing work most of the time, I still enjoy the highlights when it comes to hanging out with friends and being able to enjoy the quality downtime with them when I do catch a break.

Last modified: 11 December 2021