My Essay: The courses that surprised me the most were the ones within my major, computer science. I had known that computer science is a tremendously popular major at UMD, so I expected the class sizes to be large, but not to this degree. CMSC132 and CMSC216, for example, had a class size of around 500 students for each professor. Because of this, it was hard for the professors to respond to student emails in a timely manner or at all, because there were so many. Likewise, the professor's lecture time was practically completely dedicated to teaching the material and not answering many questions, because there were so many students. For CMSC132, there was a class forum for the students to ask questions and get them answered by either other students or instructors, but for some reason CMSC216 didn't have a forum. Otherwise, the only place to ask questions was during office hours or discussions, which were at a specific time. Although students could get the most detailed answers during these times, if a student suddenly has a question while working on a project outside of these hours, they'd have to wait for the next office hour/discussion to ask, which can get a bit annoying, since programming projects often need a lot of clarifying. My advice to combat this is to reduce the number of questions you have, by really understanding the material through outside resources, and by rereading the project instructions carefully. I know rereading the instructions is common and overused advice, but the descriptions for projects (especially CMSC216) is very complex and it's easy to miss careful details. University professors and faculty are not the same as high school teachers, obviously. The biggest difference is professors often are engaged in lots of research, and therefore can provide many research opportunities to students either directly or indirectly. Because of this, it's more beneficial to build strong connections with faculty in college than high school. However, it's also harder to do so in college, due to the sheer number of students. In my experience, the best ways to set yourself apart is by asking questions during lectures and discussions/emailing, just so the professor knows who you are more. Just by participating during lectures, you are setting yourself apart from the vast majority of students that are not. In addition, doing well in the class also definitely helps, because it shows you put in effort and care about the subject. Personally, I couldn't visit my professors in person or anything, because of online school. However, online school will hopefully be a thing in the past after this semester, so visiting the professor in person would be greatly beneficial, probably the most beneficial out of everything I've mentioned so far. Basically, you just have to make yourself known to your professors, one way or another. Friends are undoubtedly your best resource in college, especially those in your major and taking similar courses. Friends, often students, will be going through the same things you are, whether that be adjusting to university life, succeeding in their courses, or even having fun in their free time. As a result, they'll be able to connect personally to whatever you are going through, and help you (and themselves) to overcome it. I suggest being open to making more friends, and if you don't have many friends that carried over from high school, joining a club/event with other students can be a great opportunity to make friends. Among the students you meet, only a small portion will communicate with you often, and an even smaller portion will become great friends with you, but that very small portion will benefit you drastically throughout college and sometimes beyond, whether that be having fun, completing schoolwork, or finding internship/job opportunities. Because I (and other freshmen who stayed home) missed a huge portion of college life, there wasn't really much that I wasn’t prepared for. The course material was distributed similarly to high school, albeit more difficult, but that's exactly what I expected. If anything, the amount of TAs and the important role they play surprised me, but it's a good thing. In terms of university life, I speculate that living in a dorm, having a lot more free time, and constantly being able to be around friends will be something most students including myself will not be prepared for, for better or for worse. Having constant access to friends can either mean more academic support, or another reason to procrastinate, but I'd say aim for something in between, to balance having fun and studying. Living like this is just going to take getting used to in all honesty, but once you do, it'll be for the better.