My College Experience

Welcome to the “playground of unregulated freedom” (Delbanco, 19) that is college. These institutions all have a purpose in forming an individual. Some take their years in college to discover who they are, to gain independence, or to simply complete their degree. My personal experience thus far during my collegiate career has been to focus on following my passion. I have taken my love of athletics, and interest in the human body as a way to motivate myself through school with the end goal of receiving a doctoral degree. Given that my first year of college was full of hardships that caused questions as to whether an education was truly worthwhile, I am here as a sophomore stepping out of my comfort zone daily to pursue my passion.

During the first semester of my college experience, I believe taking Composition 1 greatly improved my skills as a writer. The confidence I have in my writing ability has soared, my time and stress management has improved when taking on an assignment, and I have learned several techniques and tools that will carry on in my future writings. From the beginning of the semester I underestimated the depth topic exploration, drafting, and revision had on the success of a final essay. However, I believe I have successfully organized my thoughts to coherently write each essay from early on. I took every process assignment seriously to help determine what techniques work for me, and I stuck with what worked through the remainder of the semester.

I once saw a quote that said “do not judge my life by the chapter that you walked in on”. For some reason, this quote really rings true to me. Would people think of me in a different way if they knew my whole story? In every person’s life, there are so any successes, challenges and failures, that if you walked in on their life on any particular day, you would have no idea how they became the person that they are that day.

This course like my entire first semester of university have provided me with both many challenges as well as taught me many lessons not only for my university career, but for the rest of my life. As I reflect back on the semester, I recall telling myself at least once a week that I wanted to drop out of school, followed by many breakdowns, crying fits and calling defeat. The past few months, haven’t been at all easy for me, I have thought many times I wasn’t intelligent enough to be in university, I was disappointed with some of the grades I received and I was constantly engulfed in a swarm of stress. Despite all these tough times, I have had many good one’s as well, I have made new friends which are now integral to my everyday life and I have enhanced my knowledge to a new degree. Some of the many lessons that I’ve already learned in my short university experience include how to manage my time, the importance of meeting deadlines as well as the continuous struggle of balancing the various different facets of life.

Living alone, away from home is a challenge millions of students have to undergo each year across the globe. It is like starting kindergarten again. You are entering a new place, with new people, starting a new phase of your life. After being separated form your parents, some may cry, others will run with joy at the taste of independence. However, as hard as it may be for some to admit it, they will miss their family and previous way of living. This is why finding the right college is so important to students. They have to feel comfortable in the new environment.

What are the first few adjectives that come to your mind when you think of college? It is part of American culture to make college look like the best years of a person’s life. Television, movies, and even music does a fantastic job glorifying the college experience. Often times, the high stress is never portrayed. Take my school’s statistics on stress for example, 47.9% of MTSU students reported feeling their stress levels were greater than average over the 12 months prior to completing the survey, and 27.3% of MTSU students reported their academics were negatively impacted because of stress (MTSU, 2013). With that being said, “Could writing be an outlet for students to alleviate college stress?”

People say once you graduate college to prepare yourself for the real world ahead of you. Going to college was the real world I was eager to experience after high school. The ability to be more independent and give the courage I already have to others surrounded around me. Attending Montclair State University has helped me recognize both my strengths and weaknesses throughout my college experience. Without those setbacks, I wouldn’t have been able to learn different approaches in order to be successful. These top ten lessons focused on preparation skills, communication, and passion.

There have been a few places where I been uncomfortable and have noticed many people’s mindsets such as being a growth or fixed mindset. The two places I will talk about where I have been the most uncomfortable are college and on the city bus. I will talk about what I’ve heard and I what I learned about how people think and how that can affect what others think about that person.

I was born into a culture of wealth. The air I breathe, the water I drink, the food I eat, the shoes I wear, even the smell of my backyard – it all embodies the privilege that my ancestors staked claim to – albeit, largely through happenstance, luck, and the paleness of their skin. It is with acknowledgment of my own affluence, that I participated in an experiment to attempt to live on $5 a day for two days in a row.

Moving into college, I never expected to form relationships that has such a profound effect on me so quickly. As a new college freshman, the ideas and expectations that were totally the opposite of what occurred within the first three weeks of my college freshman experience. My situation was definitely not what any college freshman would expect when entering school. My main priorities was to get myself adjusted to independent college living , being away from my parents, and made sure I handled my grades and always keep them a priority. When this event happened, I was completely blindsided, as were most of my friends. My goals and focuses suddenly went spiraling down the drain. Throughout my life, I have never experienced something so harsh and detrimental to my emotional well-being.

Last weekend, as my final task in this 27-day journal reflection, my mother had given me on the hardest task that surprising made me rethink everything I've come to known. She had asked me to send in my university applications. At first, when she told me that she wanted to get it done before Monday, I thought I was going to need another task to write about in my reflection on Wednesday, I already knew what programs I want to go into. I had no doubts about what I wanted to do, what schools offered the best program, where I live on campus, how much everything cost... I had done all my research since grade 11. I was physically ready to submit my applications. But I wasn't prepared psychologically and emotionally. Not even close. As I sat there looking at my laptop screen, I questioned everything that I thought I knew and I had let my insecurities come to surface to make my decisions. I end up switching back and forward between doing nursing and not becoming an OBGYN but do prenatal/neonatal nursing or sticking with doing health science and probably move out of Canada to go to medical school (a lot easier overseas than here). I even thought about changing majors completely and go into women studies and not pursue a career in science at all. I had seemed to lose all self-confidence that had for two years, in a matter of ten minutes. I rationing to do is to talk to others who are in university right now-- which I did. I ending up calling my aunt, my two brothers, my uncle, my

My first semester at the University of Evansville has been some of the best, yet hardest, days of my life. I have made many new friends, joined clubs, attended events on campus, and worked out at the gym, but along with all this fun came a lot of stress, hard work, and restless nights. Although I had some rough times, I believe that taking ID 106 provided with me all the information I need to cope when put into these situations and taught me how to avoid being put into stressful situations.

College never really intimidated me. I always got decent enough grades, had friends, and participated in sports during my High School years. Nothing really worthy of a scholarship by any means, and my family was unfortunately not in the financial situation to send me to an out of state school. They always did everything they could for me, So my first choice (in state) was University of Denver. However, as my family lived pretty far in Boulder to be exact, I moved into the dorms on campus. That's one of the worst decisions i’ve ever come to.

After I graduated High School, I moved to Logan, Utah to pursue my Bachelors at Utah State University. This move was actually quite easy. My mom drove down with me to help me move into my apartment and all of my belongings easily fit between our two cars. About halfway through the semester, everything kind of fell apart. I hated my program, I didn’t like the atmosphere of the university and I wanted out. It was not anything like I was hoping, and I decided I was definitely not going to stay. However, I wanted to finish out the semester and tie up all my loose ends before I transferred. After a couple weeks of heavy research, hours on the phone, and lots and lots of emails, I was set to transfer to Boise State University located in Boise, Idaho.

My first semester of college was in January I had just graduated high school in December and decided to attend Rappahannock community college for nursing. The road to the college I was attending was named route seventeen. Seventeen is a long stretch of windy, woodsy road that is known to be populated by deer. On the particular day of my accident It was pouring rain, the roads were slick with water so instead of taking my beetle convertible I decided to take my father's SUV. My boyfriend decided to accompany me to the college that day even though my parents did not know I had a boyfriend and I was not allowed to ride others in the car with me at the time.