Mid Semester Reflection

Now that I’m in the middle of the first semester of college I have gained a grasp of how college works and I know what I need to work on when it comes to my classes, especially classes that I still struggle with. For the most part I am doing well in chemistry. I can keep up and do well with chemistry because it’s interesting and instead of mindlessly taking notes while my professor talks, I instead pay full attention to what she is saying and I interreact with her by answering questions that she asks. I also do the example problems with her instead of copying her work when she is finished. These things have made understanding chemistry a lot easier overall. One class that I struggle with and need little assistance with is my world lit/culture class. The readings have been hard to keep up with and it feels like I don’t know what im doing half of the time. Luckily, I’m not alone and I’m able to get help from friends in the class that may also me struggling as well.
When entering college, I expected to have a lot more work to do than high school. Now that I’m halfway through the first semester of college I realized that there is not that much homework which means that the few assignments there are weigh more on my GPA. I also realized there is a lot more readings and studying I must do. Something about the semester that surprised me so far is that I went to parties and had a lot of fun and yet I still have decent grades. Another thing that surprised me, and was not what I expected, was how cleanly I am. This realization was because of my roommate. I thought I was messy when lived at home, but it is nothing compared to my roommate. He has laundry everywhere and he doesn’t rinse the sink after spitting tooth paste after brushing his teeth. Living with him is a challenge because of how messy and disgusting the room can get but I just got to push through it until next year.
So far, I think I have been doing well when it comes to working my way towards my intended major. I have good grades and I know a lot more about what I must do to achieve my plan of entering the nursing program. Although I intend to stick with nursing, I thought different backups for what I can do just in case things don’t go to plan. I thought about minoring in either education or psychology because they are both things that I thought about pursuing when I was in high school. Overall, I still intend to stick with nursing.
A challenge I have encountered was the fact that sometimes I just want to sleep in, but I can’t because of how far I live from classes and how long it takes for me to walk to them. This is an easy fix however because I can either fix my sleeping schedule so when I wake up, I am not so tired, and I can also find a faster way of transport to my classes. My roommate of course is another challenge because I’m not fond of him but if there is a huge issue I have with him I could just talk to the RA’s and see what they could do. Other than those challenges I have made some friends who have been helpful with the classes that we share and are great to be around and socialize with. I have also joined VSA which is something that allows me to be part of community and meet new people.
A couple of sustainable practices I have learned about are waste and water. I’ve learned about recycling water and how to keep waste at a minimum. I also learned about how hazardous sewage is handled and recycled. Overall, some sustainable practices I would participate in are sanitization, recycling water, and waste management. I don’t think I would
want to learn more about sustainability because I mainly don’t really feel the need to know every single thing about it.