For my commonplace blog epilogue post, I will discuss the connections I have formed and insights I have gained academically, socially, and personally.
One of the lessons you hear over and over again in high school is “it won’t be like this in college”. But, just like most lessons in high school, it went in one ear and out the other. Then the truth of those words really set in once I arrived on campus.
The responsibility of a college student as opposed to a high school student is equivalent to the difference between night and day. Some classes don’t have an attendance policy, homework due dates, or even something as trivial as a cell phone policy. This really requires a student to be responsible and make the right choices on a daily basis and attend class. At first I found myself struggling to muster up the will power to attend a class without a policy, or do a semester’s worth of assignments in the last few days. But I seen realized that I would put myself in a substantially better academic position of I could make more responsible choices each day. I suppose that’s really one of the most important things college is intended to teach.
Another academic insight I have gained is the idea of “process” as opposed to “a single assignment”. Writing (and other academic areas) should always be considered a process. A final product will never be as good as it could have been if it is begun and finished in a single seating. This notion applies to all areas of academics. Math should be learned, practiced, then finally executed when the knowledge has truly been learned instead of cramming in shortcuts to answers the day of a test (I learned this when I got a 100 on my first test, followed by a false sense of confidence that led to a 44 on the second test). However, the idea of a “process” most accurately relates to writing in my opinion. Theres research, outlining, drafting, revising, peer-review, and many other steps that can and should be utilized in order to optimize one’s quality of writing. In high school I found myself writing essays or even research papers only the night before, but in college the same would not fly. My quality of work was clearly much better when I would write using the appropriate process.
The final academic connection I made has been a major theme of my freshman year. I suffer from severe procrastination.
I always have a hard time forcing myself to begin my work until I ABSOLUTELY have to. Then, once I force myself to cram, my quality of work becomes the victim. I did it in high school all the time, and the harmful habit unfortunately followed me to college.
My social connections made exceeded my expectations greatly. When August finally rolled around, I suddenly realized how nervous I was to attend a new school. My whole life, I have attended the same school with the same friends in the same city, so branching out has never been a strong suit of mine. Attending college was the first time in my life that I had been subjected to a whole new environment with thousands of new people and only a handful of familiar faces, so as you can imagine I was nervous. But right away I realized that everyone else at college is in the same boat as I am. All the other freshman were just as nervous as I was and ready to make friends, so I found that by the end of the year I had a lot of new companions. I was wasting my time and energy worried about something that was totally out of my control, worked out in the long run (as many things like that do).
Finally, the personal connections I made really allowed me to see who I am and what I am capable of. I found that I have much more potential than I had allowed myself to realize in high school. If I had followed the process of learning properly instead of cramming, my work would be so much greater than almost everything I did in high school. I am capable of excellent work if I find the will power to not procrastinate. Eventually, I found this will power within me when I unfortunately experienced something that forced me to find it. When I tore my ACL, I had to change my plans for the remainder of the year (almost the entire second semester). I could no longer skip classes, because I was missing two and a half weeks for surgery. I could not put off assignments because of the large amount of make up work I was facing when I finally returned. I had to learn to manage my time well because I had to balance everything that was already on my plate with the addition of physical therapy.
What initially came as a huge inconvenience (to say the least), helped me in a way. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining, and this unplanned event forced me to become responsible and find the will power to salvage the semester. Therefore, the final lesson I learned my freshman year is that when you look at the glass as half full, you’ll find yourself in a much happier place in life. 