Mart – College Life

Gods Plan

“How do you define success as it relates to your past year or semester in college?” For me personally, success has always meant being the best at what you do. But the last year I have had to learn that you can be successful without being the best. Throughout a season of basketball that had a lot of hardships, I struggled with knowing what my role on the team was. I had inconsistent playing time and a lot of ups and downs. Our team was very successful, but it was still a hard year for me. I didn’t understand why things that were happening were happening. I felt like I was letting myself down and not doing what I was capable of. I had to reevaluate what success truly meant to me. I hadn’t been the best, but I had tried my hardest and showed my character through ups and downs. Success for me was now about how hard I was trying and how I was responding to hardships, not about being the best.
“Reflecting on your past year or semester what did you learn about yourself?” There have been a lot of ups and downs in the past year. I learned that to grow you must go through hard things. The past year of my life has been a lot of changes and a lot of new things to adapt to. From moving away to college, struggles in school, missing my family, having to make new friends, and being on the basketball team. There have been so many things to learn and get used too, but I think the thing I learned more specifically is how to authentically be myself through those hardships. Throughout the year I learned that trying to be someone else or trying to please other people leaves you with nothing. Choosing to live my life based on my personal beliefs in God and trusting that no matter what happens his plan for me is the best thing has taught me so much. God puts you through hard things for a reason and that’s to grow and to change into the person he wants you to be. College has been difficult, but I wouldn’t change the experience for anything. I have learned so much about myself and have grown into a more mature woman through it. Gods plan is always the best plan.

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Growing Up

My college experience has had many ups and downs. I have been living here on campus since June. I had to move in earlier than others for summer workouts with the women’s basketball team. At that point, there wasn’t anyone on campus other than a few athletes and there wasn’t much to do. So, the beginning of college didn’t have a high rating for me, things were new, and it was a struggle for me to adjust. Green Bay is five hours away from my hometown and being away from my family was difficult for me. The whole summer was a lot for me, and I hadn’t even gotten to the actual school part of it. School started in September and I was nervous. I have been homeschooled my whole life and being in a classroom was very new. But as time went on adjusting to the new schedule and new classes became easy. The grind of college and being an athlete was fun for me. It was hard but very fulfilling. My friends, teammates, and all the great people here have made my experience exciting so far.

Friends have made my experience much better! I have made 2 friends who I think will be lifetime friends. Coming here I was really scared that I wasn’t going to find people I could enjoy being with. I have 2 hometown friends who I’ve been friends with since 3rd grade, and I was nervous I wouldn’t find a connection like that. I feared being lonely and not fitting in. Here I am 10 months later, and I have 2 friends whom I feel like I’ve known my whole life that I love being with. I also felt that fitting in on a new basketball team would be difficult and I wouldn’t know how to be myself and have fun. The high school team I played on was very close-knit and we all really enjoyed being together and hanging out. So, moving from that team to a college team made me nervous. I came to realize that this team was like my high school team, and we could be together and have fun. I adjusted quickly and have really enjoyed new friends, new experiences, and feeling like I’m growing up. The school part of college hasn’t always been the most fun, but I’ve been successful with my grades and have learned how to be better at time management. The overall rating of my college experience would be a 7/10. There have been ups and downs, dislikes and likes but the people and experiences I’ve had have made all the hard times worth it.

What’s Best for You?

There are many pros to online classes. In my personal experience, I have enjoyed my online classes immensely. This semester I am taking 3 online classes and am enjoying the flexibility and ability to schedule my own time. Last semester I was taking only 1 online class, and the load of class time was hard because of how busy my schedule is as an athlete. With online classes, I enjoy the ability to be able to get my work done at my own pace. Another perk of online for me is the fact I can’t miss class. As an athlete, I miss classes occasionally and being behind makes things difficult. For me last semester I missed more classes than I have this semester because of how many more online classes I’m taking. I enjoy online classes as well because it is very similar to being homeschooled, which I was for my whole life. I am used to overseeing my own schedule and online classes follow that same trend. There are quite a few pros to online classes but there is also some cons.
The cons of online for me is missing interactions with students. A lot of people meet friends and people they can study with in class. Online is more isolated and can be hard to interact with students and be able to understand what’s going on in the class. From my experience as well it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on if there aren’t class sessions to talk about what assignments are due and when. Another con is also the communication with professors. I have had some struggles with online professors specifically my math class last semester where my professor wouldn’t teach anything she’d just expect us to know what was going on. Whereas my other in person classes it was easy to ask questions and do exactly what they wanted. This class specifically is a great way to explain the cons of online. Having individual meetings and being able to go through things in person is helpful. Online courses don’t give you that option. Online courses also give you the opportunity to procrastinate and get behind. Speaking from experience, I have made mistakes and left all my work to the end of the week. Whereas last semester I didn’t ever do that because almost all my classes were in person. There are many pros and cons but for me the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to online classes.