My First Year College Experience
Throughout my lifetime I have heard people talk about their college experiences and explain how college is supposed to be “the best experience of your life.†During my senior year I use to try and imagine what my first semester was going to be like at UIC based on what I had heard people talk about in the past. After my first semester at UIC I realized that I couldn’t fully understand what college was like until I experienced it for myself. My first couple of weeks at UIC was rough and really stressful. I faced challenges and obstacles that I had never heard about in those past college experience conversations. UIC is a big university and most of the time I couldn’t find my classes, and you would always see me going to the map looking where I had to go next. I still remember, it was the first Friday, I went to a wrong class. It was 10 am in the morning I was supposed to go to English class but I ended up in a history class, I guess. It was a small class just like my English class. I sat down and waited for the professor to come in. Everyone was looking at me weird. Some girl asked me if it was my first day, I said “No!!!†a little surprised. I was nervous that I couldn’t tell that I was in a wrong class until the professor called the names out and I didn’t hear my name. All of the sudden I raised my hand and tell him that he didn’t call my name. He looked over it again and my name was not anywhere. Finally he asked, “Are you sure you are in the right class miss?†Very embarrassed I said “Isn’t this English 160?†Everyone started laughing and I feeling very stupid and embarrassed ran out of the room. This was a very special moment that I will never forget and I’m never embarrassed of telling it over and over again. However, as the time passed by things smoothed down. After a few weeks I started feeling more comfortable and also making new friends.
College is a lot different than high school. I decided to commute from my home to the campus. My freshman experience made a big impression on me. I knew it was not going to be easy, but I was unsure of what was ahead of me. The one word that describes the feelings I first had during my first year at UIC is responsibility, which I experienced academically and socially. My college experience was not like any other college student would describe it. Most college students say that you have a lot of time on your hands because classes are so spread out, but things did not go this way for me. I grew more responsible academically because my classes where very straight to the point, and the teachers spoke with great knowledge. I had to keep up with tests and homework in very short periods. It took a lot of responsibility for me to accomplish this. I felt I had to change many things in my life. I had to get more sleep, finish homework fast, and make time to study for tests. Everybody in my class felt the same pressure.
In addition, academic work can make a student stressed out. Many student worries are about earning a high score in test, quiz, also class work. My experience in earning a grade has been stressful, because certain teachers make learning hard even if the work is simple. For example, there was a math teacher whose teachings was very different, instead of showing the fastest way to complete a problem, he chose the longest way. There were also some teachers that had a very bad , thick accent that you couldn’t understand a word they were saying. However, In high school the teacher would constantly remind the students when certain assignments were due, but this was not the case in college. I learned that the hard way my first semester. Sometimes I forgot to turn in an assignment because I didn’t properly read my syllabus and my professor never mentioned it. These were all new problems that could have easily let escalate without taking the proper actions. One as a student had to be extra cautious and concentrated to what the teacher was saying. For the most part I was doing good. Getting good grades I just couldn’t keep up with the due dates.
I also grew more responsible socially as I met more friends and became more acquainted with them. We exchanged phone numbers and on our breaks we used to get together and hang out. Our hang out place was the quad but as we called it “La Plaza.†All of us used to meet up there; sometimes we would play soccer and sometime we would just chill there and talk or telling jokes. One day we planned to play soccer the next day. We met at the quad and as soon as we started the game it started raining, so we decided to go and play at the recreation center. We went there but we got kicked out because we didn’t have any shorts and also I had no shoes on, I was playing on my socks.
Commuting everyday didn’t gave me enough time to get involved with school activities. Even though I tried to get into G.I.V.E, a volunteering program which was established by the University of Illinois at Chicago to promote community service, while helping students develop a sense of responsibility and accomplishment, and other organization I ended up leaving because I couldn’t keep up with the meetings. However, I did make a lot of friends and we had a lot of fun together. There was always something to do and we had a lot of fun. Friends, organizations and sports are things that make UIC a home for me.
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