Semester Reflections

Semester 1

Throughout this first semester of college, there were many different experiences than high school. Living at Bel-Air hall, and walking to classes everyday was different. During high school, I would have to wake up at 6 every morning even though my school started at 8:10. Getting to class now, it takes me almost a 20-minute walk to most of my classes. It’s different from high school because now I only have 2-3 classes a day. I feel more independent here at college without having my parents constantly watching me and telling me what to do. I feel like I also got more responsible than before. For some reason, making friends at college is so much more difficult than before. I’ve mainly been hanging out with people I’ve known before. I made friends in my Studio Art class, and I go out to eat with them and we text each other too. I still see my family every weekend and I think that made the transition into college not as scary or overwhelming. My perceptions may change next semester and sophomore year because I have switched my major from art to undecided for now. The work I will be doing will be very different from what I am doing now, and I will meet new people. Compared to high school, the workload is the same. I expected high school to be insanely hard, but so far, it’s manageable. The papers are graded way harsher than high school (which I expected) and the prompts are more difficult as well. The class sizes are also very different from my high school since I went to a very small school, I would only have 6-15 students in my classes. For colloquium, I expected the work to be different. I was expecting more hands-on activities than reflections and writing assignments. I thought it was really cool how we went over so many different types of art like music, dance, visual art, and films. Looking back, the most impactful/interesting thing I learned in Arts Scholars was the combination of artworks you could do. For example, the poem and music together. When the guest came with his poetry and his partner playing the bass, I thought it was so cool how well the music and poetry went together. I learned that you could make poetry/art from just a few words, or just your own experiences, how big or little. In the future, I will apply what I learned by knowing how anything can be art. Writing can be art. Throughout this semester, the biggest challenge for me was to get to class on time. I would be so tired for some reason and take a nap and be so tired when I woke up. I started not taking naps before class to make sure I get there on time. This worked for me, and I would get to class pretty on time. Based on my time management/punctuality, from this first semester, I will try to leave early and get to class early so I won’t have to worry about being late. I will continue to be positive during class and communicate with my peers when doing group work.