After transitioning to college, a lot of my expectations weren’t met. The expectations I had were mostly about myself. I did not have expectations for ODU, other than to be home. Yet the expectations I had for myself I feel were too big for my first semester. The biggest expectation I had for myself was to make sure I had everything figured out like time management in the first two months of college. After putting time into that, my reflection based on my classes and other activities of that expectation is impossible. Even now I’m still figuring it out, and I still have trouble keeping track of work. I feel that is now expected, It is a big adjustment from high school to college. The amount of time I need to put into one subject is a prodigious amount. Another expectation I had for myself was that I was going to be happy that I live here at ALL times, Yet that isn’t an expectation that is impossible but I should have known I was going to miss home. There are things I achieved: making new friends and finding my way around easily. My experiences this semester have been great even without my expectations being met. I’ve met new people and feel like I have people to reach out to. One experience that I think was a surprise for me was trying to play rugby. I had never played nor knew what I was doing. Moving here was challenging because I didn’t know anyone, but I feel that is the easiest obstacle to overcome. 

My major is Public health, I originally did not know much about this major other than what I was told when a switched. One thing I learned about my major is the flexible specialties. Public health majors can lead down many roads, like administration, environmental science, an epidemiologist, and community health workers. I think I have grown to love my major even more after learning this. I know if I need a change I have the means to do so. I am going to major in Public health but I also hope to take upper-level division classes in psychology or maybe even a minor. I do not know much about it but next semester I’m taking an Introduction to psychology class.

There are five main courses I am taking this semester. The class I feel I am doing the best in is my sociology course. I have already taken this course before in high school through my community college, but I did not feel I did well enough. I decided to take it again and I feel I’m learning even more than I did before. I did identify two classes I’ve needed assistance with my honors course and Introduction to world literature and cultures. For my world Literature class, I asked my professor what I needed to do to help me better understand the material. I have taken her advice into consideration and I am reading out loud, reading things more than once, and I have found a group of friends in the class to help me study. For my honors class, I reached out to my professor, he has given me extensions on the assignments I have had trouble with and given me a better understanding of the assignments.