My First Week as a College Student

Monday June 7, 2010 was the first time I walked into my new college English class. My first thoughts ever since I knew I was enrolled in the program was a mixture of fear and excitement. The first impression I got from my new English teacher was active, creative, fun, outgoing, honest, and easy to get along with. She began the class by handing out the syllabus and explaining her rules to the whole class. She expected us to be on time everyday and if we had more than five absences we would positively fail her class. This was different from high school because in high school you get ten absence before a class is failed.

College 101 is a class that is helping us prepare for our senior year and when it comes time to fill out scholarships and choose universities. In my opinion the campus is big and comforting. There are always people walking around and this gave me a sense of trust. The walking is pretty easy because i am in the CPACS building for both College 101 and English. I have tutoring in the library which is about three minutes away from the CPACS building. The only bad day I have had when it came to walking was on the first Thursday of attending the university. It was a gray cloudy day and I was in the library for tutoring when it began to rain. I was hoping the rain would clear out by the time I had to walk over to the CPACS building. The rain did lighten up a little, but I still got wet by the time I reached the CPACS building.

All of the summer scholars have tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursdays. To me this is a great advantage because our RTAs explain things we do not understand. They help us with the reading about President Obama's autobiography. They give us suggestions about writing an essay and listen to our ideas. This is very motivating to me because I know I have someone to help me out while I'm taking this course during the summer.

Residential Life with Summer Scholars

As Friday 4,2010 drew closer so did my excitement and nervousness. I was headed to Scott Residence Hall for my week stay. I would be sharing a suite with three strangers from other schools. Would they like my personality, would they enjoy my company, would they be kind? These were only a few of the questions that circled my thoughts. As I walked through the hall's door, my hands began sweating and my heart was pounding like crazy.


I only knew three of the Summer Scholars and I stuck with them for the first two hours. After a while went by I was determined to meet more than two new friends. I only got to interact with two of my roommates because the third one was occupied with juggling a job and class after we began on Monday 7. Not only did i become friends with Summer Scholars, but also with my resident tutor advisors (RTA's). Some of them were still current college students. A few had already graduated.


Our RTA's not only helped us feel comfortable at the hall, but they also tried helping us on anything they could. They answered any questions we had about our first day and they also enjoyed interacting with us. They shared their college experience with us. When we started the first day, they helped us on our homework and explained everything as well as they could. The week came to an end. It was time for packing and for good byes to be exchanged.