Semester Reflections

Semester 1

This semester marked a major turning point in my life. I was granted a whole new world of freedom, which allowed me to make more decisions for the trajectory of my life than ever before. This newfound independence has worked its way into every aspect of my life, namely through improving my ability to work out any problem I may encounter on my own, like dealing with missing paperwork, communicating with professors, navigating College Park and Washington D.C. and much more. In comparison with my high school life, this semester has been much more enjoyable than I expected. My biggest worry going into college was whether I would be assigned a roommate I would get along with, but that fear was quickly put out when I discovered Carlos and I shared more in common than I ever could have expected. As far as dorm life goes, I have not made many friendships outside of my roommate, however that was expected and is by no means a bad thing. I get along with my neighbors well and can have nice conversations if needed, which is well enough for me.

For the upcoming semester, I am quite happy to stay where I am at the moment. My Spring 2024 schedule classes are almost entirely within a five minute walk from Bel Air, and I have grown quite comfortable with my room. After the Spring semester, I think that a change of scenery would be nice. I am hoping that the credits I brought from High School will be enough to place me at a Junior status during my sophomore year, so I have the opportunity to live somewhere on South Campus. The architecture and environment is just so drastically different from the North Campus communities, I think the change would be very interesting and add to the college experience. While I do not see my family as often as I did in high school, this just makes phone calls and visits all the better.

When I started this semester, I was concerned about the workload of college, especially being an engineering major since I had heard so many complaints about it. Luckily, I have not found it to be too bad. I would say that it is a little more than some of my other friends’ workloads, but not by much. Besides, I can handle it and it has not been an issue so far. My first semester professors have all generally been quite lenient in nearly every aspect, contrary to what I was told in high school. In this Arts Scholars program specifically, I did not have much expectations going in. I was willing to step outside my comfort zone and try something I was not too confident or familiar with, which ended up being very beneficial to my acclimation to the university. Most notably, I had not expected all of the off campus activities, like service day and field trips (I went to the Renwick Gallery), which were interesting experiences that allowed me to explore the area surrounding my new home. 

I would say that my biggest takeaway from colloquium was seeing just how differently art can speak to different kinds of people. There was no one day that made this clear to me, rather a culmination of all of our guest speakers sharing what they do and why they do it. I do not recall any two presentations having the same motivations to make art, and that spoke to me. Art can mean so many different things to so many people, and that personalization is what makes it so uniquely meaningful.

One new challenge introduced to me this semester was the struggle of getting a team together to work on something. CPSA100, as well as my intro to engineering class required in person meetings of 7+ people who all had vastly different schedules. I had never stopped to think about how challenging it could be to find a time where all group members were available, but after spending some time working on my group work skills, I learned how to talk to and engage with these teams in meaningful ways that encouraged comfortable communication, which is key to getting along both in and outside of class. In short, this semester taught me a lot about what to expect over the next four years of my life, and put to rest many of the fears I had over the daunting presence of college. I feel confident in what I have learned over the past three and half months to successfully navigate to graduation while getting the most out of what this university has to offer.