When I first decided to join the University of Maryland I was pretty nervous. I was not really sure how college was going to be like as I knew it was not at all like high school. I was especially nervous about how difficult the classes were going to be as if I failed I would of wasted my parents money. So far, however, things have been fine, but preety difficult. My structure and assignments of the classes I have were somewhat different from what I expected, but not to bad, and CPSG100 was plesently suprising. Life as a UMD student has also gone pretty well, as I have been able to make some friends.
My classes have been both suprising and completely expected. Math 141 is unsuprisingly the most difficult classes I have. While I am definitly above average in math, calculus is a huge pain to get through, especially at a higher level. The lectures were sometimes quite difficult to understand, as if I got lost somewhere it was often very difficult for me to catch up. This ment I had to read the textbook often in order to actually understand what was being taught. I expected a lot of studying, but this class made me study more than I thought I would need to. CMSC 131 was fine at the beggining, as I had javaScript experience which is similar to Java. After a few projects we reached stuff that I had no idea how to do, and I was struggling hard. I spent hours at TAs in order for me to finish the first difficult project for me, but after that things became less difficult as I knew what I was doing more. The lectures are about what I expected and I rarely needed to review lectures to understand things which was nice. This class was quite similar to what I envisioned.
Astr100 was a class I choose because I find space very interesting and needed a GenEd. The class was mostly what I expected. It was not as difficult as the other two classes, but was still required a lot of effort. Tests and quizes were suprising difficult so I had to study a lot for exams. What suprised me the most is that we had to do participation assigments in class, as I did not think that college classes would care that much about you attending classs every day. However, this class was one of the easier ones. Finally, we have CPSG100. I had no idea what to expect other than the class was largely about climate change. While this is a major topic, there were many things we discussed in the class I did not expect at all. The most suprising thing was the eportfolio. If any class would involve making one, you would think it would be a Computer science class. I am very glad we did this though, as it gave us something to use for future jobs. I also did not expect the excursions, but they were less suprising, as some of them were more related to the environment. This class definitly shocked me the most.
Living as a college student is not as stressful as I expected. This is the first time I have lived somewhere without my parents so I was kind of nervous. The main reason I wanted to go to a college close to me is so I would still be in close contact with my parents. That was a good choice as my glasses broke this sumester, and I had to get new ones. If I was by myself, I would of had to wait until break to travel back to my parents and get it fixed. I was able to make friends fine thanks to being in the College Success Scholars (CSS) program and joining a board game club. UMD hit the expectation of the average college life I had in highshool accurately, with the big lecture rooms, distance between classes, and available clubs. I am very nervous about change in general, so thankfully this has been a pretty good experience for me.
A large amount of people who first came to this college were probebly as nevrous as I was, but I have some advice for adjusting and enjoying your college life. The most important thing you want to do if you want to make new friends is to join a club. It is by far the easiest way to meet new people. I was lucky enough to be in a program that introduced me to many people, but without that, clubs would be the only way for me to make new friends. Furthermore, you should should schedual out your day. It is greatly helpful if you are a chronic procrastinator, or if you are still not used to the new college workload. Finally, you should try and form study groups with people you know are taking the same classes. Being able to ask people for help has definitly prevented my from failing assignments or missing questions on tests. It is a great benifit to have. This does require you to make friends, however, so that should be the biggest priority. Overall I am enjoying my time at UMD, although right now finals are breathing down my neck. I hope I and everyone else will have a successful college experience.