Like with anything, I walked into West Halls with expectations. I was convinced a bundle of fun times and positive feedback were ahead of me. I thought growing experiences would be some daily routine, like brushing my hair (although that is quite a process, let me tell you) or making my bed (an improvement from my high school routine). But I quickly learned that college is not a Lifetime movie. There were disappointments. There were some ridiculous comments that have come out of sleep deprivation and stress. There were moments in which I wanted to bang my head against my desk and say "if I hear one more thing about vampires, I'll scream."
I'm also not the most outgoing person on the planet, which made it seem like every college preparation book was rubbing it in my face when it was all "you're gonna make so many friends you won't be able to count them." So hey, maybe going out and partying with friends does affect one's ability to do math. This is probably the aspect of college I struggled most with, because I was bound by the perception that quantity overpowers quality, which, as my science professor pointed out when discussing our blog assignment, is simply ridiculous. I've been happy to meet and converse with new people, but I'm not the type of person who says, "you had cereal for breakfast too? OMG besties!" It's a slower process for the shy sort, but for now, I'm enjoying the company of the people in clubs I've joined, and I've also realized that throughout the awkwardness of friend-making, it's not a bad thing to have a bunch of familiar faces from high school. Sure, I don't want to get stuck in a rut where lunch time gossip and gym class humilities are the last time I'll ever grow socially, but it's through my best friends that have also come to PSU that I realize quality laughs in quanitity's face every single time. Just by rooming with my best friend this semester I've learned a lot about her, and, consequently, myself. I don't know what it is about those few minutes before bed, but nighttime chats seem to be the most philosophical and meaningful. Even when I'm eighty years old with a cane and no teeth, I won't forget those talks.
In terms of classes, the work load has been manageable, but I've still stretched myself to think critically and to question everything. My comfort zone has always been in creative writing, but I doubt inventing a story in which Charles Foster Kane falls in love with Norma Desmond and they live happily ever after would impress my English teacher, no matter how many times I used the word "albeit" (another thing I've learned: if you use that word more than once in an essay, you sound like a pretentious ass). But as it turns out, analytical essays are not entirely painful to write. They can, on occasion, even be fun. It makes reading a book even more engaging because an analytical reading requires every sentence, every word, to matter. Reading for leisure is still important, but it's easier to skim over something that could be vital to a story. Through analytical writing, I've become a better reader, a better thinker.
What really shocked me, however, was not what the classes for my major allowed me to accomplish. I signed up for my science class just hoping to get a few GenEd credits out of the way, and ended up taking away more than I could ever imagine from science. It helped that the class was designed for non science-majors, so the topics were less intimidating than what a chemistry or biology class might present. This class was intended for us the question the numerous scientific studies out there and realize that the peer review portion of science is a dog eat dog industry, almost making it impossible for new studies to be published, or at the very least, given positive feedback. I've learned to not just take scientific studies as though they were the word of God; I make sure to do some background research on the study at hand and see how statistical evidence could be distorted in that particular study's favor.
Plus, we got to blog, which obviously made me want to do this:
So, all in all, I'd say it was a quality first semester. Next semester I hope to get out more and not be as intimidated by talking to new people, and to challenge myself more in classes. Which, with two upper level English classes and a (gulp) math class, I'm pretty sure will be the case.
Namaste.
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