All Good Things Must Come to an End

1. Self-Evaluation 

Fifteen weeks ago, I was a high school graduate anticipating, worrying, thinking all day everyday about my future as a Nittany Lion. My thoughts were consumed with thoughts like, What are professors like? How am I going to survive finals? Will I make friends? What will my roommate be like? The normal thoughts of any incoming college student.

Now fifteen weeks later, I can answer most of the questions with confidence. My roommate is awesome, I made an abundance of new friends, and college professors are very smart. I have not yet conquered my first round of finals so that is still to be determined.

Although I have only been a Nittany Lion for a few short weeks, I feel like I have been one for life. I know that choosing Penn State was the best decision I could have made for myself academically and socially. I am surrounded by people with the same goals as me, the same motivations as me, and similar interests as me. Within the short time span of my life at Penn State, I have already learned many important things about myself academically and socially.

Socially, one of the hardest things I encountered was making friends in the beginning of the semester. At home, I have had the same friends since elementary school and the simple skill of making friends had never been an issue. When I got to college, I had to re-make all my friends and it proved to be slightly difficult at first. I had to step out of my comfort zone and talk to people I knew nothing about. While it seemed daunting on the first day, every freshman was in the same boat as me and I now have some of the greatest friends I could ask for.

Academically, I had to readjust to sitting in class, having homework, and studying for finals because I had seriously slacked on all of that towards the end of my senior year. I quickly fell back into the rhythm of school and sort of enjoyed having a schedule again. Since I came into Penn State with an undecided major many of my classes were exploratory courses and I was eager to learn about different subjects than I had in high school.

With the semester coming to an end, I can safely say that I will NEVER go into a career in economics or mathematics. I took one class in each of those subjects and although the material was not too difficult to learn, I just realized I have no interest in either subject. I also took a psychology class and loved the course, as well as a French class, which is now going to be my minor.

One of my favorite classes (and I’m not just saying this because I have to blog about it…this is my honest opinion!) was English 15. I really enjoyed the structure of the class because it was very different from my high school English classes. We did not spend hours aimlessly completing “daily edits” or reading boring novels and analyzing each word of every book. Instead, it was a much more discussion-based class which I truly enjoyed because it made me think. I was encouraged to think about issues that were plaguing our world and especially our community of Penn State. In high school, I always dreaded the art museum field trips, but this class helped me view a different perspective of art. Because I was not forced to analyze art in a specific way, but was given guidelines of how to go about things, I felt I was able to express my feelings of art in a way that made sense to me. This class was not cookie-cutter English which made it one of the best.

After almost completing one semester already at Penn State, it is safe to say that I will gladly be returning for the next seven semesters and look forward to future classes and broadening my horizons through Penn State University.  

2. Blog Comments

http://liddycoddington.blogspot.com/2012/09/blog-analysis.html#comment-form

http://ideasoninspiration.blogspot.com/2012/09/turkish-delight.html?showComment=1348753809870#c8799344579648809665

http://derosag5050.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-arboretum.html?showComment=1349189184307#c3956151419357179413

http://joewater.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-garden-means-to-me.html?showComment=1349710193944#c6061474741440084268

http://artsfortheheart.blogspot.com/2012/10/theres-new-critic-in-town-without.html?showComment=1350316872682#c5908215289600986413

http://artsinthehappyvalley.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-red-and-brown-water.html?showComment=1355114720950#c1453603413614530955

http://theartsynittanylion.blogspot.com/2012/12/crazy-for-shwayze.html?showComment=1355115045861#c6177954029802632654

http://jimmyschlupp.blogspot.com/2012/12/artscultural-event.html?showComment=1355115475191#c39885666193554116

http://joewater.blogspot.com/2012/12/random-post-christmas-decorations.html?showComment=1355115871763#c1310099960769873969

http://samanthamartinblogspot.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-arboretum-at-penn-state.html?showComment=1355116404043#c5911328986535280285

3. Hi Ms. S, I completed my SRTEs!