College

    I recently finished my first year of college at home and with online classes. It felt different that there were hours during the day where I didn’t have a class. It wasn’t the same as being in a school, specifically high school. Especially since I had to pick my own classes and my parents weren’t being sent notifications, it all went through me. It was time for me to do things on my own and while I didn’t get the same impact as students usually did, I still ended up learning things.

    I took five classes for each semester and some of them were asynchronous, which meant we didn’t communicate through video and simply had to submit our assignments. The classes also weren’t always on the same day so mostly after the afternoon I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be. During my second semester, for some classes I was allowed to retake an assignment as many times as I wanted until I got 100% before the due date. Therefore, I didn’t feel as much weight on myself as I should have had until finals. I got nervous, but I couldn’t keep depending on my family for help so I needed to focus on what I learned. Being at home did prevent me from feeling confined in a room like at high school. At home I have the option to pace when I want and while my teachers received my accommodations at college, it was tough not being able to communicate with them directly so I plan on making things different by living at college in the fall.

    I got accepted into the honors program and was glad I did it. I liked my small honors classes and participating in special honors events online. It was nice being accepted for my accomplishments by getting into the honors program and I made the Dean’s list in college for my grades. I didn’t get much of a chance to make friends, but it’s okay because staying at home allowed me to know about college before actually going. I still need my space so I got myself a single and a suite where three girls are staying in the other rooms. My college year was interesting because I did have plenty of good moments. In the fall I’m going to learn what it’s like actually being there.