My First Semester In College

Starting college in August of 2008 was completely different than what I was expecting. My parents loaded up my car and sent me on my way to gain a college degree and experience life on my own, but looking back over the situation, I tend to ask myself numerous times do I think I was ready for college and the responsibilities that were to come along with it. Each time the answer was no. Being the first person in my family to go off to college away from home, I had no idea what to expect, or how to handle the things that come along with college life. Needless to say, it took me several major changes and me leaving my first university and transferring to one at home for me to get a handle of the situation.

Returning to college after having been out of the school system for seven years has been quite a challenge. For me, high school was relatively easy; I had a teacher there to hold my hand every step of the way. The college scene is completely different as O 'Keeney states, "You 're really on your own when it comes to passing courses." Having strong organization and time management skills has helped make my time at college successful thus far.

When I started my first semester of college, I was very worried about writing essays and research papers. I felt like my writing skills lacked greatly compared to other students. I knew a few things of which I could improve on right off the bat, such as my vocabulary skills and organizational skills. To say the least I was very nervous about how my writing composition course would be like and did not think it would go very well for me. However, I learned so many techniques that have helped my writing skills grow. It all started with learning how to stay organized, planning what to write in your essay in outline form and sticking to it really helped when writing essays. These techniques helped me become more confident in my essays and allowed writing essays to become a lot easier. The few aspects in which I am strong in while writing essays is my ability to stay organized, focused and be very clear about what I am writing. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement; a few things that I can think of being grammar and punctuation due to no revising, embedding quotes smoothly, and citing sources correctly.

During my first semester at Touro College, I took a course on the History and Philosophy of Education and Special Education. Throughout this course, I was introduced to many philosophers and their theories, which helped me to develop a personal educational philosophy that I will implement into my own future classrooms. In our very first class session, we examined the word ‘education’. Education derives from two Latin roots, educare: to bring up, to train, to teach, and educere: to lead forth, to draw forth, to guide. In the world of education today, a child’s success in school is primarily dependant on his or her ability to pass standardized tests; this embodies the concept of educare. Knowledge is passed down from the teacher to the

May came around at long last. So did the end of my second semester of college at Florida Atlantic University. Not only did I survive my freshman year, I thrived, passing eight of my nine joint courses with A’s and getting A-minus on the other one. Just like “Neon” Leon shocked the departed Muhammad Ali in 1978, I defied my own expectations and those of a few among my closest friends and family. Did I soon spend the next few months indulging in summer merriment at the beach, getting my tan on while thirteen-year-old boys fawned over pictures of Selena Gomez? Nope. I took summer classes to keep my mind sharp and knock out a few of the requirements towards a degree which I’d earn three years later. One such class = a six-week crash course in public speaking. Everything went well until I got an assignment to create, practice, and deliver a three-to-five-minute speech involving someone who stood out. The possibilities overwhelmed me until I recalled someone with an outstanding life, hit him up on my cell, and talked to him in person one hot Saturday afternoon.

This is my last semester at Governors State University. There were only two classes that were part of my study plan that I needed for this semester, and I created a schedule with four weekend classes so that I could be full time. Instead of taking classes that would just look good on my resume, I decided to take classes that would help to benefit me the most and ensure my future success as a holistic human being. Other students had spoken about the Lab in Personal Growth briefly, and every person shared the same sentiment. They each stated that this was an emotional and eye opening experience that involved a great deal of emotional insight. Outside of that, I was unaware of what I was in for, but I was excited for whatever challenge was ahead.

With any course, especially one with a focus as broad as leadership, the material covered may include a range from useful to impractical. It is impossible to learn the skills necessary of an effective leader completely out of a book, it takes the application of them to understand. The development of leadership is vital to successfully moving forward in any career, so it would be beneficial to cultivate these skills academically.

This is my first semester at Mesa College. I am currently a Political Science major. The term that would best describe my current situation would be “non-traditional” student. I graduated from high school in 2006. Since then I have gotten married, travelled the world, and had two children. While in high school I excelled and took part in many academic extra-curricular activities. In the past ten years I have accumulated work and life experience. Most recently I was able to work as a legal assistant for an immigration firm. Being bilingual was beneficial, as was my interest in law in general. I plan on attending law school in the future which made the job appealing. Although I deferred college for this long it has always been my

I have seen that it is easy to fall behind and lose track of what needs to be done. I have for the past two years of my college experience tried very hard not to fall behind. I have worked diligently in all of my classes and it reflects in my GPA. I am also not taking the easiest way out either. I am taking full semesters with 15 or 18 hours each. I try to get a good mix of classes from different areas. This semester I am taking numerous upper level courses along with lower ones. Some of these classes include tasks that must be done each day and other ones only need to be done once or twice a week. I feel that achieving good grades through the variety of classes that I am taking is a great achievement for me. College is different from high school; students have more freedom. I am proud of myself for my achievement of maintaining my high grades throughout my first couple of years at Lincoln University. I plan to continue to preserve my high grades all the way until

When I was younger and thinking about college I always pictured it as I saw it in the movies, you sleep all day and have fun all night. Know what I know now I understand the importance of college and I think of it a little differently than before. I know that I need to work hard and study hard to be able to succeed at my fullest potential in college. I have had a few experiences in my life that have helped me realize that I need to work hard to get the output which I was hoping for in the beginning. I’ve seen my sister diagnosed with diabetes her first week of high school, I’ve witnessed my dad struggling through cancer and conquering it, and I have made it through 6 month of grueling and time consuming physical therapy to make it so I could use my shoulder again. Through these experiences my perspective about hard work and perseverance has changed dramatically, and for that I am thankful.

Whenever you are doing something in life, you are expanding your knowledge. Whether it may be in a classroom, work environment, or at home; you are always learning something. You could be learning about a specific subject, skills for your job, and learning about yourself. The best way to learn about yourself and your skill set is to continually doing a task many different ways. While in college, we are exposed to many things that may take us out of our comfort zone and for us to learn from that experience.

The first year of college comes with many changes and challenges. These changes can include the food in the cafeteria, study habits, time management skills, and much more. Every student has to find their own way to handle the first year and determine what works best for them. For many the most essential change is living away from home. Campus life provides opportunities to become a part of a unique, diversified community. With these opportunities come challenges, such as having a roommate, being away from one’s parents, and determining self-limits.

I can remember missing 8:05 classes because I stayed out too late the night before. In high school the teacher would constantly remind the students when certain assignments were due, but this was not the case in college. I learned that the hard way my first semester. Sometimes I forgot to turn in an assignment because I didn’t properly read my syllabus and my professor never mentioned it. These were all new problems that could have easily let escalate without taking the proper actions. For the most part I was doing fairly well but a few of my grades began to plummet. I was losing the confidence in myself and started to wonder if going to college had been the best decision. The time had come for me to grow up and become an adult even I didn’t feel the time was right. I immediately began attending tutoring sessions, working with peers and also keeping a daily to-do list. These factors were the eventually led to drastic improvement and success. After my first semester I learned how better manage my time, take advantage of campus resources and also how to organize myself better. These struggles also taught me that sometimes I try and rush through things instead of taking my time. I realized that one of my strong points is being able to really do well when my back is against the wall. Although I was unhappy while facing obstacles I am happy I experienced them. I believe this experience was the reason for my

When I first enrolled in this course I thought it would be a good chance for me to meet new people with an interest in ballet, but I never thought that it would have a larger impact on myself. For instance, I did not believe that I would relate the world of ballet to my economics and statistic class that I am currently enrolled in as well, but that is exactly what I began to do. During these past 15 weeks I have learn much about myself, life, and ballet. The class is not what I ever imagined; however I would not change a thing about the class overall. Ballet like everything else has a rich history that although it does not seem important, or appear interesting is key to having an understanding of where it

Hearing so many good things and bad things about college I didn’t know what to expect and look forward to. That change my junior year knowing different college come every year I didn’t really pay it any mind what college I wanted to go to until ODU, Virginia State University and Virginia Teach came. It was Virginia State first year of visiting out school and I knew I wanted to go there I start getting e excited for college that were talking about their experience at college and what to look for when we graduated if we decided to go to college. Eager to start a new chapter college sound like it could be a little nerve wrecking but I thought I could handle it.