I recently asked '14 GLHS graduate Noah Dennison to write a guest post on my blog about his first year in college. I thought the best way to send the Seniors out into the world was the same way they came into GLHS: with a Freshman Experience. Take it all in Seniors: #WeAreLions
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As much as you may be academically prepared for college,
with the help of great high school teachers and countless hours dedicated to
your studies, or maybe your talent for
guessing really well on multiple choice tests, one thing is certain: college is
a different ball game. Sure, you'll more than likely take an entire schedule
full of general education classes required by your school, but you've probably
also heard that college professors are quite different. After all, how couldn’t
they be?
Compare your class size of 20 to 30 students now and
understand that some (but definitely not all) of your college class rosters
will contain ten times that number of people. And when you think of the average
student, you think of one of your friends, the kid that sits next to you in
stats class, or someone like them. In college, literally anyone of any age
group can be sitting next to you. This might not seem too crazy in writing, but
imagine sitting down in a lecture hall for your first college English course as
a 65-year-old woman takes the seat next to you. Her name was Marianne. She
admitted to taking the class, "because it’s free for senior citizens to
apply" and because she "wanted to be better at arguing with her
husband." Towards the end of the course, as we approached American
literature in the 1950's, she was able to actually give real life examples of
similar themes from her childhood.
Really weird stuff will happen to you in and out of the
classroom because, simply, college is a totally different arena. Because
of all the crazy and typically very new stuff happening literally everywhere,
you will definitely develop a sense of self-awareness like you've never had. By
the time I finally moved out of my dorm, I actually felt like a different
person. It's insane how differently you look at things like your family, home,
and your friends after spending almost a full year in another place. That, of
course, doesn't only apply to students leaving home, either.
There is a huge sense of independence found during freshman
year. You start to realize that you can actually make real decisions on your
own. Like, for example, when to file your state taxes, or even whether or not
your 7:30 Biology lab is really all that important to you as a graphic design
major.*
Going to college is a big step in a person's life. It
definitely isn't something that should be taken for granted, especially if
you're going to a state school (I mean, it's like $20,000 per year at the very
least) and you should definitely try to go out of your comfort zone as much as
possible to experience everything it has to offer. You'll learn a ton in your
lectures and labs, but college is definitely not just inside the classroom.
*Go to classes, seriously. If you want a 1-Step Plan to
failing a class: Don't Show Up.
Noah Dennsion
GLHS Class of 2014