Ever since I was a little boy, I had always heard the same thing about college- “It’s the best time of your life! You’re going to have so much fun at college.” It felt like college was what I’d been prepping for my whole life. After finishing high school and getting accepted to university, it felt like my life had changed. I was no longer chained to one location for half of my day, and I had so much freedom.
Upon starting college, I quickly learned that it was a much more difficult jump than it was to high school. I stumbled right out of the gate with procrastinating on assignments (something I may or may not still be working on), bad study habits, and disorganization. While it was difficult to get on the right track, I was so lucky that I had amazing professors who understood where I was coming from being a new college student. They provided sound advice on how develop better habits that made the countless assignments and studying far more manageable. After developing my own rhythm for getting work done, I noticed that a lot of the stress I once had due to college started to go away. In addition to feeling less stressed, I was also much happier with my performance in difficult classes.
Looking back over the course of my first semester of college, I am glad that I had somewhat difficult welcoming to adulthood. I not only learned how to study and organize myself, but I also learned important lessons on resiliency and critical thinking. Out of everything I have learned while on my journey through college, I am most proud of the fact that I learned how to embrace failure, a concept I had never been comfortable with. Once I learned how to accept that everyone fails, I started focusing more on how I could improve and learn from my mistakes. After nearly being done with my first semester of college, it makes me smile to see how much I have grown and will continue to grow.
CODES 123
Going into my second semester of college, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. At the end of high school, I had thought that I had my goals and plans figured out. Afterwards, college then proceeded to knock me down and laugh at me when I believed I would be able to breeze through courses. When the first semester came to a close, even though I had improved in some areas, there were a few that I needed to still work on. This is evident by how my grades looked at the beginning of this semester. It was challenging to get back into the swing of things, however, now that I know what it’s like to transition back into academia, it will hopefully get easier over time.
One of the few constants that has remained, however, is my love for science, specifically the subject of Physics. When I was in CODES 121, I knew that I hadn’t even scratched the surface of interesting topics that we would be covering in my major – and I’m happy to say that over the course of this semester, we reached some of those topics. Being able to discover the fundamentals of how the universe works is one of the most fulfilling activities that I’m able to do. This love for science also transitions well into our CODES classes, as I am able to offer a unique perspective and thought process when it comes to both individual and group assignments.
In addition to my coursework for my major, I was also able to go deeper into the research process that has been relevant to our CODES curriculum. I quickly found out that academic research is no simple task, and there are several steps involved to presenting your research and findings. However, I believe this allows for an individual to know their topic well enough to answer any relevant questions and further their specific field of study. The research process also taught me that a slow and steady pace is much better than doing a significant amount of work at any one given time. When it comes to both my individual and community-based research, I am excited to see where the fruits of my labor lead in the next few semesters.
If I had to sum up all aspects of what my first year of college was like into one word, there is no doubt in my mind that the word I would use is “eventful.” In the beginning, I was afraid of how different this experience would be. I was worried that I wasn’t prepared and that I wouldn’t be able to handle what college was going to throw at me. It was clear from the first few weeks that there was going to be a substantial leap of responsibility that I would have to face. This was the first point in my life that school had forced me against a wall and cornered me. I was overwhelmed, taken out of my comfort zone, and forced to learn an entire new schedule for how to balance my time, and I hated it… until it changed my life. Being able to be proud of my work and having the feeling that my efforts were going into something that was tangible is one of the best feelings I’ve had. I know that I am still far from ideal, but I’m more willing than ever to improve myself.