What it's like in my first year being as a college's student

Well, what I expected before was much more different, at least. Yeah, university for me was a place that offers possibilities and chances to broaden my social life, knowledge, way of thinking etc. It’s all true, but some didn’t work for me. When I was in orientation days, the seniors promoted their clubs, organizations and societies, it was interesting though, and I got some immediate decisions that I have to join with them.

As the time passed by, it seems quite impossible for me to do that. One of lecturer once said

“There are 3 types of student in the university, first are those who really focus on their grades, classes, assignments, reading stuff instead of joining and working with an organization, they called as academic student. And they are considered to graduate faster than any types of student (3-4 years). The second are those who invest their mind in social life, organization, society, character building etc. they are not aiming for fast-graduate years in study but they prefer joining an organization more often than classes..” He said that this type of student often cannot graduate in 5 or 6 years of study. They called as Activist student. “The last type, are those who take a balance way, both in academic and organization’s life. They called as an Idealist student. They can manage their time to be in classes, and in the same time running the organization’s agenda really well. Both academic and organization are important….”

With these types of student in campus, I thought that I prefer to be an academic student rather than other types. That’s because I really want to graduate as fast as I can, I just don’t want to spending the rest of my life being here as a student. And I don’t feel the same about an organization or maybe society as well. Yeah, I’m not planning to be a member actively of those groups.

And there I was nothing but attended classes. First was got easy, but turning bored since I’d recognized that there were just diversity of people from another province/city with different traits and characters, but nothing seemed interesting for me, I thought that they were just an ordinary people. And I was uncomfortable even to walking around, because I was solitude person, nobody’s stood or walked with me. I also still had a bad judgment on seniors, since they treated me badly on the orientation days. 

Freshmen? i'd prefer say Psycho :p

Yeah, Orientation Day was and still is the worst experience I ever had.

 How can I forget it? Even just to write down those miserable moments is painful. I just didn’t get the idea of that obligation program. Such a nightmare for freshmen, even keeping me a traumatic scene after long weeks the event had been over. but obviously, besides the bad approach they took, but the orientation day is also made the bound between senior and junior is likely to be stronger, and to be honest, it made some of my friends got along with senior students. so, it has a benefits as well.

Something new for me too was the courses system that has a very different approach than when I was in senior high school. In college, the lecturer gives us new method of learning by not just focusing on the material that he’d give but also about the responses or the interaction that should be developed during the course. It’s just like we, the student have to give feedback to the lecturer, so the learning process would be more active. And here, in college, the lecturer or maybe the whole institution system are very strict with the absences. We only have 3 available spots of absences that if we take it off out of the number that had been instruction, then we likely to fail on the subject, particularly and could give side-effect to the entire grades, there is no excuse at all.

Anyway, the verdicts –about the whole situation in campus I was facing, kept me for a long run, about several weeks of study before I met these kids.

They were invisible, I mean like I wasn’t so much care for others, I didn’t recognize that they were exist. But then that day I met them in the library. Were making assignments, which is also had been given in the same class as me, they looked friendly or just 2 of them at first. They are the groups of 7 members, 2 boys and 5 girls. I knew that I ever met with one of the boy before, so it didn’t so hard for me to take a place with them. It got awkward actually, because they were busy on each other, but I just kept in silence reading book, pretending that it has a good content. But you know, after an hour sitting with them, they started to look at me, and of course talking.

That was the first time I felt comfortable being around the campus, because I walked with them.

Then I knew that they came from different, and far, cities. They also had named the group, oh my God, are they really mean this? Seven Team (7Team), that’s the name of this group. I don’t have to tell you why they picked this one.

So, day by day went by, I  spent lot of times with them, we even went together for lunch, form the chairs for just our group in class, so we had a close-chairs form to each other, it feels like we couldn’t life if being separated in class. We took a lot of pictures also, and eventually,  I officially joined with them as a new member, and the good thing that I didn’t have to make registration form or id card, and we called us a Family8 ( I’m the one who suggested this name ). After that, we hung out more often, we visited each other’s houses, we were never missed to celebrate one member’s birthday and we’d always given the best surprise ever. Family 8, group of weird kids yet unique, crazy, humorous, and compact as well. We are known well in class as the only group that has interesting appearance and habits hahahaha. People knew us, we were active, and known as a group of smart kids also (not to brag). There wasn’t a moment without laughs, jokes, sarcasms, etc. we had a really good times together. The relationship that I’d never have imagined, and I think I was so lucky to be ever met with them, thanks God.

My campus’s life getting better and better with them, we made the assignments, like learning group, and passed the first semester really well. I just found my new family.

Yeah most of us, I mean all of us got good grades, above 3.00 GPA, and I personally got 4.00 GPA. Unbelievable, I mean like I never expected before with that GPA, I just aimed for standard grades, at least there is no D on any subject I took, but eventually gained As for all the subjects. I think this is not just because I focused on the learning process, it also because the environment, the people who were surrounding us. In my case, there are no other people I’d spent more time than my Family8, who were always with me. I realized that it couldn’t be better than having friends whose being supportive on you.

Semester 2 were getting hard though, why? Because we had spent a long holiday at home, with nothing to do, and we almost forgot how to write with pen, or even to reading.  I personally, had lost the motivation to take a class as well, since there was nothing but boring classes in my mind and I was running my online business, it had my all attentions, anything else was secondary. I don’t know but  it might be because I had already got a good grades on first semester, and I couldn’t believe it either, so I ended up wondering what I  should do, or could I defending this grades? It got me stressed out at first, I missed classes, really didn’t care about the absence nor the assignments. Every time I was in classes, I’m started to questioning all life’s choices, I thought that I’d be better to quit and start my own business.

And the worst part was family8 weren’t the same.

I tried my best to focus on and be on the track again. I downloaded motivational videos, and speeches just to heat me up. I read articles about being motivated by self, motivation quotes, and even I tried to change my whole habits as well. I applied some techniques to change my whole life.

In fact that I became more positive, organized, punctual, and disciplines. Every day, I wrote down things I should do on my to-do list, which I never done before, I also kept daily journal and wrote down something I should grateful for on Gratitude Journal. I started to look at things in a different perspective, no more complains, no more blames, but more self-esteem and self improving as well. This is started since I read books more often than ever.

Its effect on my life has a greatly results. My every day activities had becoming more manageable and easy, I couldn’t feel stress –out, and of course happier life since I didn’t take any negatives feedback.

On my second semester, I got a chance to compete at the English Debate contest on university level. I’m one of the teams that had to representing our faculty. It was so unreal, I mean like, I used to be shy, and wouldn’t take any chances so easily, I wasn’t so much confident, but when I knew what I wanted to be in my life, what I wanted to achieve,  I had no doubt at all. This was the first English-contest I ever competed. Even though we didn’t make it to champion, at least we had some precious experiences. It’s a rare opportunity.

So I changed, from the unmotivated person to really passionate person and motivated person, I began write my goals and dreams, which is good in fact to pursue it with easier actions. Once I realized that this is what I should be in the past 5 years, really, I didn’t know who I was supposed to be then, but now I know.

It’s all make a sense, I becoming a lover of my own self, I start to learn myself deeper. Then everything seems better. Now I have clearer visions and though the second semester has finished, I do hope I can get a good grades again, but if I don’t, it really doesn’t matter since I didn’t work that hard and missed classes at the first beginning of this semester. What it really matter that I’ve changed, and I’ve learned, so I could managing to be a better person on the upcoming semesters.

My relationship to relatives, family, friends (included Family8) becoming much better than ever.

And I think that college’s life has changed the way I’m thinking, it forces me to change. I can’t believe my life as college student would be like this, but then here I am. So much interesting, and it’s all worth it.

I’m looking forward for the next phase of my life..

how about your first year as a student? whether you're in the junior high school, high school or college?

share yours with me. see ya on comment. BS