Navigating the Maze of my College Journey

This year has had both positive and challenging qualities. One of the main positives is that I feel more control over my own schedule. When I lived at home, I was always controlled by my mom, and she told me what to do and what not to do. Now, I can think more for myself, and I have found myself more independent because of it. Another positive that I have stumbled upon in my college experience is that there is such a variety of classes to take; coming from a small high school, I only got to have one or two options for classes I could take. In college, I have many choices of what classes to take and when. It was shocking when they offered such an expansive list to me, and I could actually choose

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On the other hand, there are quite a few negative situations that have affected the rating of my overall college experience so far. The first one being my first semester roommate. Nothing to really complain about there, and she was nice, but we never really talked. I came into last semester thinking that all college roommates would be best friends, but I was wrong. We coexisted for a while until she told me that she moved over winter break. After that, I got a new roommate. I was looking forward to it, thinking it could be better than the last. Sadly, I was wrong. My new roommate is an international student. She is kind, but she knows little about American culture. I’ve been doing my best to show her all there is to see here, but sometimes it can be a struggle because of the language barrier. Overall, I’d rate my college experience a six so far. It’s been a challenge, but I am still hanging in there so I can finish the semester strong.

What Is This, Some New Age Thing?

There are quite a few pros of online courses. One of the main ones is that you can do them from literally anywhere. This means you could do it from home, your car, or even another state. It is very flexible in this way, and it’s nice because there’s nowhere you are required to be at a certain time. As long as you get your assignments in on time, you’re golden. Another pro is that everything you need is on Canvas. This means you don’t have to write down reminders that are only said in class, struggle with assignments, etc. It is helpful that they have a majority of their directions in Canvas, and professors can always be contacted through email. Lastly, another pro is that you can take a wide variety of courses, even if the course isn’t offered as an in person class. This creates flexibility so students can increase their knowledge in different subjects. 

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Even though there are many pros of online classes, there are also many cons. One of the main cons is that sometimes it’s hard to learn without a professor in the room with you. From personal experience, I’ve struggled in online classes because it’s difficult to learn from watching videos. For example, this semester I am in an online history course, and the professor doesn’t even make videos. He just copies and pastes an article as a “lecture.” Another con of online classes is that there aren’t any classmates that you can physically talk to/work together with. Working with others helps me a lot because we have a sense of community and we all are working together to achieve the same goal.