My biggest challenge this semester has been my physics class. I often found myself confused in both the recitations and the lecture and it was very hard to follow along. In order to address this, I sought help from my fellow classmates, the book, and outside resources such as CrashCourse. I found pulling from a multitude of resources let me learn the material from different and fresh perspectives and allowed me to understand it better. Additionally, it was helpful to hear the same material over and over again as this allowed me to really absorb the information and not let me forget it.
I chose to explore the Engineering and Knowlton School of Architecture. I chose this lecture because I am interested in the engineering majors.
At the beginning of the semester, I was all over the place in terms of majors. I thought about education, engineering, pre-med, and pre-law as general categories but these all have many majors under their titles which would match these career fields. I am now seriously considering majoring in political science, computer science, or both. These are somewhat correlated to what I was thinking at the beginning of the year but are much more narrowed down options.
Political science fits with my interests because I am interested in the government and pre-law as a future career option and path. I also have strengths in writing and I think it would support me if I chose this major as my official major. Computer science engineering fits with my strengths and interests because I like math and this will help me to succeed. Additionally, engineering interests me because I think that every code is like a puzzle to solve.
The part that was most beneficial about attending lecture was learning about the many resources offered by the university. Also, I think learning about the various deadlines was essential because I can now make sure I never miss one. These will both help me to have a fulfilling college experience and be more stress-free.
I wish I would have learned about how to avoid procrastination in the lectures. I feel like this is one of the biggest problems in college that students face. I find myself struggling with this daily. Yes, I could write down a schedule of what I want to do and schedule it out hour-by –hour but I find that ineffective as I have trouble sticking to it as temptations come my way.
Next semester I wish to have a definitive idea as to what my major will be as my first goal and find out whether it is feasible to double major in them both as my second goal. I will use my advisor and the course catalog. I also will use the advisors in these colleges to see if I can do this and I might talk to people in the Senior Bank in each of these majors individually to get a better projection of my chances to succeed in those majors.
The advice I would give myself is to go to physics tutoring and to never skip a class. I feel like these decisions had a negative impact on my grades. Also, I would tell myself to not worry about making friends as this thought made me very timid and worried for th first few months of college.