My First Semester Of My College Career

Growing up I was known to be a very shy child. I was too scared to talk to anyone and I was very reserved. I always have cared about what people thought about me. I didn’t want to wear “boy” clothes because I worried kids would make fun of me. I didn’t even make close friends until fifth grade. When I did finally feel comfortable at school and found amazing friends, I decided to switch schools shortly after for a chance at new opportunities. It lead me to standing alone in a crowded high school while I waited for that first bell to ring, so I could head to my first period class.

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.

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

Starting the new semester will be a different experience as to the first semester. My first semester was a beginning to a new chapter, it was my first semester in college. Everything was so different compared to high school. Some things do not change when it comes to school instead, they need to improve, and in this case, it is being successful and not getting into bad habits. As the semester proceeds, there are things I hope I do not change, so they can help me succeed. There are also many obstacles that can get in my way, but with motivation I can overcome them. Some obstacles that might stand in my way of being successful this semester are laziness, distractions, and my social life.

Knowing myself began the summer before my first official semester of college at the University of California, Berkeley in Summer Bridge, a transitioning program for incoming student athletes and underrepresented students of color. Though I planned get an early start on my lower division math and science classes that summer, Summer Bridge's directors decided different. Rather than Calculus and Chemistry, I was enrolled in College Algebra and African American Studies 39D (AAS 39D), “Black & Female”.

My first semester of college, I was determined to go into medical school after my undergraduate year. However, That thought changed after a year of being in college. As a first generation student, I never had a clear explanation on how hard college was going to be and on how difficult it may be to me to decided on a specific major. As I get to learn about the different varieties on majors, It creates a burden due to me being indecisive on my major.

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.

My first semester as a college student at Sussex County Community College has been a learning experience. I feel as if I am a much different person than I was on September 8th. I currently attend SCCC two days a week, full time, as a Liberal Arts- Psychology Option major. I take five classes, and when I started the semester I was extremely overwhelmed. In high school, we had multiple classes in a row, but college is much different.

It was Tuesday, September 8th and it was the first day of college class. It was a long Labor Day weekend and on the first day I had writing on my schedule. My writing skills are not that great but I was looking forward to improve my skills. Writing was the last class of my day and I was running late. I had to rush to north quad all the way from south quad, it seemed far away because I didn’t know my way around campus. As I got there, I sat down and our teacher discusses the basics of what writing 100 would cover. I also checked out the syllabus and the first official writing assignment was due the following week. I was nervous, but I saw that it was an interview so it couldn’t be that bad. I called my mom and told her I was going to interview her for my writing class. She was excited that I asked her but not thrilled about doing some schoolwork. I emailed her 6 questions to answer and she responded the next day with the following:

This framework might be relevant to the current study as students in their second year of college have many decisions to make. It is a time when these students are achieving competence and developing autonomy (Lemons & Richmond, 1987). Difficulties arise such as in choice of core curriculum courses or in maintaining interpersonal relationships which can precipitate crises of confidence (Boivin, Fountain, & Baylis, 2000). No longer having the support of “the fabricated society” (Margolis, 1976) of the first year experience, the second-year student must now more frequently rely on their own knowledge and intuition to make decisions. Second year students who have not yet decided on a major, and who have not confronted their situation, will find the process of choosing courses to be increasingly difficult (Gordon, 2010). Many of these students choose not to make decisions, and spend considerably less time doing academic activities (Gardner, 2000; Gohn, Swartz, & Donnelly, 2001; Graunke & Woosley, 2005). Gardner (2000) found that they tend to spend 25% of their time in self-gratifying activities. Time not being on their side, the undeclared second-year student faces challenges if they are not yet able nor willing to make a choice of major (Gordon, 2010). Using the theory of decision fatigue, the process of decision-making will take a toll on these students and soon they will give up (Baumeister & Tierney, 2011).

If you Google the definition of community one of the options will say, “A feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.” Now there are many different communities I could fit in with. I could have done this on the Hispanic community, the Huntsville community, or something else, but I chose the EAST community. A community that has students, teachers, mentors, friends, volunteers, and role models. East is a very large United States organization that stands for Environmental and Spatial Technology. I have been in this program for a while now back in my hometown’s high school. It mostly consist of students trying to be able to stand out in the workforce when they get out of school. They learn new abilities like ArcGIS, 3D printing, Photoshop, basic medical training, and other occupations. This program has been up since 1996. I joined it my first year of freshmen year. I have meet so many interesting people, and learned so many new things just by being part of the program. People all over have been changed by EAST one way or another. People like Ryan DuChanois who started his path as a civic engineer because of EAST. This is a community that has stereotypes, problems, goals, and eye opening opportunities for anybody and everybody.

First one semester of my college year is going towards the end and I am just happy about there will be no classes or homework for me for a while. I never enjoyed nor good at writing a few pages of paper. If there is any homework assignments are due on the same date, I would always do the assignments for other classes, then come back to the paper and start staring into the computer screen for hours rather than moving my fingers on keyboard and type. Honestly writing is not my favorite thing to do in this world, but I know I could do better when I try. GSW 1110 is the class that proved me that.

Growing up, biking has always been one of my favorite activities, as I had frequented riding in the vicinity of Cupertino with my dad over the weekend. The wind, which rushed through the aerodynamically-designed holes on top of my helmet, was cool enough on a hot summer’s day to escape the blistering hot Californian temperatures. The limitless trails and roads which stretched so far that the eye could not see never ceased to excite me. As I had gripped the handles, a whole new version of me was finally brought out, and all my worries and troubles had dissipated instantaneously.

It’s my first day on a college campus as I walk through the halls with my junior high classmates. Everybody is slightly nervous as we are about to see our first cadaver. Our anatomy teacher had some connections at SLU and was able convince them to let us view a cadaver hoping to get us interested in a medical career. We walk into the room as the smell of preservatives overcomes us. A medical student separates us into groups and assigns us a cadaver. Over the next hour we all see things we have only seen in our textbooks and every question we can think of is answered by the medical students. I remember being impressed that none of our questions even warranted looking into a book as the medical students seemingly knew all the answers. At the end of the hour before it was time to leave our instructor told us that we should make a note of what the experience felt like because we would likely never experience it again if we did not go to medical school. It was at that moment that I decided I would be going to medical school at some point but it was not until just recently that I have started to understand and love just how that decision has and will change my life.

It was a warm autumn morning and the sun was just rising on the horizon. I was already awake and ready for my first day at the college. Later I found myself standing crusted like a statue behind the white door which reminded me an endless emotional tension that I usually experience all the time while facing a simple for some people but for me a very difficult situation to deal with. For a long period of time a very deep anxiety and nervousness had been my only response to the situations when I had to interact with new people. Communication has always been an unsolvable issue in my life as long as I remember myself, which caused me a lot of trouble during my daily life and, i always tried to avoid it and couldn 't find a will-power or capabilities to overcome it meanwhile realizing that my life would have been a lot easier than at that moment.