Originally published on August 14, 2017
As I prepare for my penultimate “first day of school”, I’ve
been thinking about the differences between college back to school and back to
school for any year before. Let me preface this by saying I love school, I love
learning, and there comes a point in every summer when I am itching to get
back. The thing of it is, there’s a different feeling between wanting to get
back to middle or high school and wanting to get back to college.
Especially by this point in college, I know the campus. I
know the professors. I know the routine. I have friends and know how to make
them. I know what to expect from Day 1 of a class. (Syllabus. Reading. Paper.
Final. Repeat.) I know my responsibilities. I know the nuts and bolts of my
little side jobs. I know my department requirements. I can see the year ahead
of me with clarity and I cannot wait. There’s still room to grow and always
room to learn. But the wandering is over. I am an upperclassman and I feel like
one.
In years past, the first day of school did bring a little
bit of dread, a fear of the unknown. In grade school my homeroom would switch
and I would spend half my day with a different teacher than the year before. In
high school I could already feel the workload sneaking up on me. And of course
there was just the atmosphere in comparison to the freedom I had over the
summer: an awkward preteen atmosphere where we still have assigned seats for
lunch and only recess if we behave, or even in high school where we have to
take the “Pirate pass” to leave the classroom. It’s the opposite in college. Complete
freedom, essentially. Go to class when you want. Leave campus when you want.
Eat what you want wherever with whomever.
I think this year, more than ever, I am excited because I am
starting to really find what I like. I am looking forward to my classes because
they are classes I want to take. No more Honors/IB level courses keeping me
constantly working on some project or other, cramming for tests every week, eating
up vocab sheets, barely skimming required reading, feeling burned out by the time
the musicals come around (though in retrospect that was the best education I
could have asked for). I still have a couple cores left, but that’s fine. The
majority of my time is spent in the world of music and communication, where I
can call watching TV doing homework.
I always like the fresh start and coming back to my friends.
Since I worked on campus this summer (article to come) I feel like I haven’t
left, but that’s a good feeling. I love Mercyhurst and am excited to keep
learning and growing over the next two years. Only a week and a half to go!
No comments:
Post a Comment