Semester Reflections

Semester 1

Life as a University student has not been much different than at home. At home, I share a room with my sister so having a roommate was not a problem. My roommate is in the Business Society and Economy (BSE) Scholars Program so I live with the BSE people in Cambridge Hall. One thing that has made living in the dorm very fun is being so close to my friends. I have made so many friends in my building that I get to pass by every day. Going to UMD is exactly how I imagined it would be. At times it has been hard but overall I wouldn’t change it for the world. The biggest adjustment for me would be being away from my sister for the first time. My sister Sloan is my best friend and college has been the first time that I have been away from her. I’ve adjusted to this by still talking to her all the time on facetime or texting.

For schoolwork, my workload has not been very hard. As an architecture major, most of my work has been projects and I have not had many quizzes or tests. This makes me feel less stressed since I am able to plan out when I will get my projects done and I don’t have to rely on one specific time to take a test. I feel like I have spent the most time doing work for physics outside of class. This was due to it being a lab and there being a lab report and pre lab due at the start of each week. Although this class was not challenged, sometimes the amount of work I had to do became overwhelming. One thing I learned from this semester that I will carry over into next semester is to not overwork myself over grades. Although grades are very important, I felt like I have had much better overall wellbeing when I am not stressed about getting a couple points off on an assignment that I still tried my best on. 

Before I joined the Arts Scholars Program, I thought that it was going to be a much more structured course. Once I started the program, it did not take me long to figure out that this class was going to be laid back and thought provoking. Many of the assignments at the beginning of the year made me think about art in ways that I have never thought of before. I liked how we were able to discuss topics within small groups with the “agree and disagree” slides. One thing that I did not expect us to do was to go on campus visits. For my campus visit, I went to the Art Gallery in the Art and Sociology building. This was very interesting to me because I have never been in the building and had no idea that we had art galleries on campus.  

During the tour at the art gallery, we took part in slow looking at a painting. This had to have been the most thought provoking part of Arts Scholars so far. I have never really examined an art piece as in depth as I did and it made me look more in depth on other pieces of art. As I looked at the painting, I was able to look past what was on the surface and look deep into the little details. I found this enjoyable and I felt that I was able to enjoy the piece and connect with the artist better. I will definitely use this in the future when I go to an art museum and use slow looking on all the art pieces. 

One of the biggest challenges that I have faced so far in college is staying connected with my friends and family at home. Since I’ve been adjusting to my new college lifestyle, I have been less focused on my loved ones at home. I have stayed too focused on my school work and after a while realized that I have not spoken to many of my hometown friends or family in a while. Once I realized this, I began reaching out to people I have not talked to in a while to catch up. I am now able to prioritize time for my friends and family that are not at school by talking to them on the phone or texting them. I will continue to communicate with my family and friends at home when I am walking to class or have some free time in between doing work. 

This class as a whole has taught me a lot about embracing discomfort in the learning process. I feel that while in this class, I was able to embrace discomfort in discussions. When in discussions, we would discuss very broad topics around art. This caused people to have opposing opinions and discuss them. This made sure that I had background information on what I was saying and stepped out of my comfort zone by stating my opinion in front of a lot of people. I feel that this class has made me much better at facing discomfort. I feel that since the topics we discuss in class are new to me and I am new to all the people in the class, discussing my opinion focuses me to step out of my comfort zone and embrace discomfort even more than usual. 

Stepping into Arts Scholars I had an expectation that the class was going to be very structured and strictly regimented. Since taking the first colloquium class, I realized that the class is very laid back and very enjoyable. Since my expectations for this class were stricter, my time in the class has been much better; I thought it was going to be a harder class than it was. I was able to enjoy all the activities more since there was less work to do related to them. I am grateful for all the new art I was able to see and take part in without having to go out of my way. Sometimes I get lazy with trying new things and won’t go to things unless I have to. Since some of the assignments for this class were going to art activities around campus, I was able to see new art which is something that I enjoy. For the expectation vs reality gap, I will try to set broader expectations that I am not strictly regimented to in my head.