For the most part, my classes this semester at the University of Maryland have fit my expectations, but despite these expectations, this past semester has still been a surprise to me in many ways. Initially, I believed that with online classes, I would have a lot more flexibility and time to do more activities outside of class. While the former may be true, it felt that I actually had less time, and as the days got shorter, and the hours of sunlight decreased, I found it hard to focus. The primary reason being that I would log into my zoom lessons in the morning, and by the time I would log out for the day, it would be dark outside. Additionally, I didn't quite expect how draining online classes would actually be. Normally we would be walking around campus going to classes, talking and making friends, but with my classes being online this semester, although I was progressing through my classes, I felt as if I haven't been making any progress at all. Making friends became harder, and frankly more awkward.
In terms of classes however, my expectations matched what had actually occurred. The course expectations have been made clear from the start, and bigger class sizes already being anticipated. I admit however, my CHEM135 class being one section of around 800 people was not anything close to what I had in mind, however the curves on the exams are much larger now because of the size. But the overall way each class was structured around zooms and panopto recordings, as well as daily Calculus assignments, and ENES100 projects were fair and I had expected them to be about the same.
A few topics covered in CPSG100 that I didn't expect to learn about were the logical fallacies, and lectures about pseudoscience and geology. In addition, the HTML and CSS lessons were some that I would not have seen coming my direction from a mile away. Initially I was a little apprehensive about coding in general, as it's something I don't particularly enjoy, but this class helped me past that, and showed me how useful it can really be. Something we didn't go in depth with discussing is the global change aspect, I didn't expect this class to focus on the scientific process as much, and it was really interesting to learn about the way scientists think when researching and experimenting. Although we have discussed overall global change, I expect that in the future we will be going into more depth with this topic. The outside of class activities were not in abundance, as it was necessary to distance ourselves from others to keep everyone safe.
In high school, before the COVID-19 pandemic, I expected university life to be full of excitement, independence, and managing your own day, with your own schedule. After the pandemic started, I envisioned something that would be a very reduced version of my initial idea. However as the pandemic worsened, a few years ago I would not have seen myself studying at University from my own house, through a computer. I definitely feel like I have missed out on a few too many on campus opportunities which I was looking forward to in high school, and I think that's the biggest difference in expectations, compared to the reality.
Some advice that I would give to future SGC students would be that it's important to always stay on top of your work, but also have a designated day of the week where you take it easier, and give yourself a break to prevent burnout. Also, something that I found useful is that when I am faced with a more daunting task such as writing an essay, or doing a project, that I know for a fact will take a long time, I give myself ten minutes to sit with that task, and do the parts that I know how to do within those ten minutes. Whether it's outlining, or answering a few questions or making bullet point ideas, at the end of those ten minutes, the task isn't as daunting as it originally was, and it feels like a weight off my shoulders.
Overall, this semester was very much different than a normal university experience, with most people spending a lot more time themselves than normal. In terms of my non academic life, I found a lot of importance in going outside and getting fresh air and exercising which helped me to focus on my school assignments better. However, one major drawback to having school online this year was that the time I spend on my screen has gone up drastically. With classes as well as assignments both being online, there was not much that we could do as students to avoid spending a lot of time on our computers, other than take breaks.