Time to Reflect

So it’s our last blog of the year and I decided to do a nonprofound one this week to wrap things up. Looking back on the year, it has been interesting to see how much I have learned, grown, and how many new things I have experienced. The transition from college to high school has not always been easy or fun, but I feel like I have handled it pretty well overall and I have taken so much away from this semester. Living away from all my family and friends has been one of the hardest parts. I miss them very much and I always look forward to when I see them again. Of course, I still talk to many of them through text or Facebook, but it just isn’t the same. It has also been hard not having a car or knowing my way around very well. Back in Roanoke, I could just go hop in my car and drive somewhere. I knew exactly where I was going (usually) and it was…easy. Now, well for one I don’t even have a car up here, and two, aside from getting around campus, I don’t really know where much is. It is hard for me because it makes me uncomfortable going places that I don’t know how to get to. I’ve gotten used to all of it for the most part though. It feels like Virginia Tech is my new home now and Roanoke is my second home; I guess that’s how it’s supposed to be.

The cool thing that I have noticed is that every class I have taken has been different from a high school class in a different way. General Chemistry is my biggest class. It has 200 people in it as opposed to 30 which was about my biggest class in high school. It was also different because there was a separate class pretty much solely dedicated to turning in homework. Then, to go with it, I had to take the chemistry lab. In high school we did labs in class but nothing to that caliber. It was weird having a class set aside just to do labs and it was surprisingly time consuming. They were much more in depth and complicated than the measly experiments we did in high school and that showed in the lab reports! I highly regret taking Intro to Science and Technology. It is one of the most boring and confusing classes I have ever taken in my life and it is also at 8 am. It is the kind of class where you can only go to class on the days that you have to turn something in and you can still make a B at least. There are no tests which is a huge plus because, if there were, I would be screwed. Instead of a final exam, there is a paper that I have to write. Resources Geology is different because the only grades in the class are four tests. Right now I’m not too happy about that since I haven’t done so well on the previous three tests but I know I can pull it up. I like it though because there is no homework; all I have to do is study for the tests. I also had my first online class in Linear Algebra. I liked being able to just pop a squat in my seat in my dorm and take a quiz whenever I felt like it. It was really different having every quiz only six questions though and knowing that every Saturday at 10 I had to have started it. Last but not least, that leaves English. I like English for the fact that it was somewhat similar to a high school class actually. It is my smallest class which is nice because it is easier to make friends and get to know people. It is different from high school though because the class is more straight forward. We tend to focus on one thing at a time as opposed to high school where we would be reading a book and have a paper and get completely off course and do vocabulary etc. etc. all in one week. When we have a paper, that is all we do, which I love. I have never had a reason to look forward to doing a paper until now; getting out of class all week is amazing. Although, I think every time we have to do a blog that we should get out for the week too!

A lot of college for me has been just getting used to being on my own and dealing with all the freedom I have. When my parents left the room on my very first day, my roommate and I just looked at each other and it hit us. We are completely on our own now. There is nobody to tell me to get up or to study or to even go to class. It is my choice of whether I do all of those things or not so, ultimately how well I do in college is all put on me. I don’t have to go down to dinner to eat what my mom fixes whenever she calls. What I eat and when I eat and whether I even want to eat is up to me (and the best part is I get to use my mom’s money to pay for it!). Aside from learning about what I am taught in class, I have learned a lot about myself and just how to deal with being on my own. I figured out my strengths and weaknesses and what I need to get better at. Instead of just saying, “Mom you handle this because I don’t know what to do,” I have to figure it out by myself. These things are all good because it shows that I am maturing and learning how to fend for myself in the real world. My parents won’t always be there to walk me through life, so I need to know how to walk myself through life.