College
is a struggle; I've learned this later than
sooner. I've had more challenges than successes in my first semester
of college. I've learned a lot through my classes that helped me in
my social life and my academic life. Actions that I once thought were
okay to do were now questioned. Through these past
months I've stumbled upon the motto that if you don’t go through
struggles in life then you won’t reach the goals that you set for
yourself. I've learned to accept failure and embrace it to the point
where it will lead me to my success. My class etiquette was the demise of me
learning to my full potential. My social life put a damper on my academic life,
to the point where my priorities were not in the right order. My grades were at
a point where it was enough to just get me by, instead of to show my true
intelligence. My mental state of mind was also in that of a high school student
instead of a college student. As Twyla Tharp said in her book The Creative Habit, “When
you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to get out
of it,” and that’s exactly what I want to do next semester.
My first semester
college experience has been a very interesting experience for me. One of my
improvements has been the fact that I have managed to create a better study
habit than I did when I first started my semester. Even though there is no
doubt in my mind that improvement is well needed I am being very optimistic that
I will reach my goal to having the perfect study routine for myself which will
make me a better student. Class participation is very important in college and
my lack of participation has hurt me more than aid me. This semester I should
of took a more hands on approach in most of my classes and contributed in some
of the discussions or at least made some type of indication to show that I was
paying attention in class. I’m not the type of person that likes everyone
looking at them and criticizing their views. I can see how one’s review might
see me as someone who cannot accept other people’s opinions, but I like to do
my own critiquing when no one’s around. This may have affected my ability to
fully benefit from my classes, but that is something I will work on for my
second semester. I will become more attentive to my teachers lessons and engage
in more intellectual conversation with my peers about what we are being
taught.
A very valuable lesson
that I had to learn the hard way was that you have to pick and choose your
friends wisely. There are a lot of friends that I have lost since I started to
attend college. Some I've lost because they were more into the party
scene instead of the educational; some thought that since they were now in
college they could drop their true identity only to make a new one to better
fit their peers, and others just seem to have a different set of priorities
than I, which is fine with me. I had to realize that school is my first
priority and my social life is my second priority. Seriously, what college
student doesn't like the party life? So for me to say that I don’t
like the party life would be a lie. I love college and the party scene, but I
feel as if it can be very overwhelming and kind of have students get lost in
it. This was a huge struggle for me at first, I wanted to go to all the parties
and balance my academic life, but I didn't think about getting ahead
on some of the readings for my classes or to go over the syllabus that my
teachers sent to me. When I first started my classes I was very excited but
after the first week of partying and waking up at 8 am every morning to go to
class my body started to get very tired. I guess it’s true when they say
that lack of sleep can put a lot of stress on someone’s body because mine was
definitely stressed out. A lot of students think that they can have those
college experiences on TV and I’m not saying that someone can’t but it’s harder
to maintain that image then most college students
think. I've come to realize that just because I was a freshman
in college I thought my teachers would go easy on me but that was definitely
not the case. I would often come late to class and that is not a good thing. I
figured that doing my assignment the night before or the day of would be good enough.
Easy to say I was wrong, and my partying life had to come to an end until the
semester was over.
In my second semester of college I know I am going to do better because I kind
of know what to expect. I have a set routine now of how to balance my social
life and my academic life in college. I feel like if I didn't go wild
like most college students do their first year then I wouldn't have
gotten it all out of my system. I feel as if my Inquiry class also helped me because
a lot of the stuff that my classmates and I were taught became useful to me.
Some of the discussions would really make me think twice about how I was
handling my first semester in college. The exercises that we did in class
about high school vs. college really made me think about
how I've been approaching this whole idea of being on my own. I was
still in that mindset of no parental guidance or authorities telling you what
to do and that felt great to me and I felt like I was ready for the
responsibility, but in reality I wasn't It sucks that I had to wait
a whole semester and do the things I did to finally come to the realization
that I need to step up and actually grow up. Once Again as Twyla Tharp said,
“When you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to
get out of it.” I have not made the best choices this first semester but I HAVE
learned from my mistakes, so my biggest success this semester IS embracing
failure and I’m going to continue to motivate myself and surround myself with
actions and people that can aid me instead of detour me from my goals in life,
which is to succeed to point where I feel satisfied with myself and can say
that I did it.
