Due Date: December 9, 2024
As I approach the end of my first semester, I believe it is the appropriate time to reflect on my experiences as a current freshman student and as a member of College Park Scholars: Science and Global Change. Being a college student has certainly altered my perspective and has brought many ups and downs. With these meaningful experiences, I also have advice to give to others inside and outside of the scholars program.
Outside of my CPSG100 class, I have been exposed to numerous STEM courses aligning with my major computer engineering. These courses have helped me better prepare for my future as an engineer and have taught me many critical thinking skills. I expected that these courses would be rigorous before entering college, and this was the reality I faced upon attending the classes. Despite being told this, my brain did not fully grasp the idea that these courses would be so different from high school. In contrast to high school, these courses were extremely fast-paced and strictly structured. Another trend I knew of but did not fully register in my mind until I came to college, was the gender disparity in my field with the majority of my field being dominated by males. Although this saddens me, I am happy to say that the men around me have been respectful, and I am hopeful that the general circumstances will change even more with the rise of the female perspective.
In addition to these courses, I have taken CPSG100 as a part of being a member of the Science and Global Change College Park Scholars program. I had the expectation that I would learn and discuss climate change and other scientific topics alongside my classmates and professors, and this class delivered. As a person who has always had a passion for learning about global issues like climate change, I have truly enjoyed every minute of this course. Having been exposed to some of this content in an environmental science course in high school, I was familiar with and had a passion for the content already. I appreciated the fact that this course covered other topics that I was not familiar with and had professors who were so knowledgeable and had expertise in this area of science. Moreover, this course included service days (e.g. at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in D.C. ) and excursion opportunities (e.g. the American Natural History Museum in NYC), which all enabled me to learn and apply the content of the class to the real world and give back to our community alongside my classmates in the course. This course was also a good change of pace and content as compared to my other courses for my major.
Being a member of the Science and Global Change program has allowed me the opportunity to be a resident at the Centerville residence hall. Living on campus during the school weeks has enabled me to better connect with my peers and the Cambridge community. Although it has been very difficult getting used to the overall living circumstances and being away from my home for most of the weeks, I visit my family on the weekends and try to catch up on my hobbies when I can, giving me a balance of atmosphere. A piece of advice that I would give to future students in the program would be to get involved in activities, inside and outside of class, as much as possible and make connections with others. For example, I have joined the Iranian Student Foundation (ISF), which has allowed me to interact with other Iranian students from all fields of study and reconnect with those I had not seen in a while. This has been a huge reason why I have been able to forge new friendships in my college experience and has also served as a way to temporarily escape my demanding academics.
To conclude this reflection, I have gained much knowledge and skills from being an engineering major, a member of the scholars program, and living on campus with my peers, and I will forever cherish that. I realize now that I have only been at the University of Maryland for a single semester so far and much awaits me in my four years at the university, but despite this, I am hopeful that I will be a part of many more academic and social opportunities offered and will be able to give much more advice to others in the future concerning these matters. I am deeply proud to be a part of the UMD community and the Science and Global Change community of scholars and hope to experience more in my future studies.