The biggest thing I have learned from my first year of college is how to learn and teach myself. In my situation, I am thousands of miles away from my home and family. When you run into a stumbling block there is no time to get depressed and look around for help. I am on my own now; it’s up to me to seek resources and use my own intelligence to come up with the answers. One thing I have also learned is that college is a lot about understanding yourself. Understanding your specific style of learning, and understanding how to manage your time accordingly. For example during my fall semester I was taking 18 hours and I was on the track team. Balancing a full load and coming home from practice worn out was draining. As a result my biology grade was not up to par and I eventually dropped it. Now that I am in summer school taking two classes, including Biology, I have realized what my down fall was. The teacher I had in the fall was boring and taught solely with lectures. At the time I was ignorant to the fact that it was my responsibility to go home and teach myself. Coincidentally, I have the same teacher for summer school now. This time I am prepared; although he is a boring teacher he presents the information and I go home and read the whole chapter again. After reading the chapter I look up YouTube videos to help with my understanding. I have always had high expectations for myself and I believe that’s part of the reason I’ve got so far. Now that I’m in college I have set my bar even higher; not living up to my full potential is not an option. I’m shooting for the stars; and by that I mean if I shoot for a 4.0, at the least I should have a 3.5 and land on the clouds.
Our campus is small at Dillard University; but I definitely realized how everyone looks out for each other. When your goals are set and you are aiming for high expectations, people realize that and they help out where they can. Now that I am in summer school and the incoming freshmen have come, I’ve noticed myself doing the same thing. When I make it to the top I want to look around and see those I started with. My school is really like a community because everybody knows each other. In a sense, it helps you stay on top of your game. If you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do everyone will know. Not saying I’m worried about what others think but it’s no point of me flying miles away from home and spending all this money to not handle business.
-Courtney, Dillard University, Class of 2016
