The End of My First Year of College

Yes, it does feel like yesterday was the Orientation Ceremony. It seems trivial to say that, but that is truth. Truth is always trivial. A year has passed again and it seems it's time to look back and think a little about the process. This would have been easier if I kept a diary, but I could not find time and motivation to write regularly. Recently, I started a blog for the same reasons I wanted to keep a diary. I have hope in this project and I even put it in my goals list for this year.

Speaking of Lists of Goals, at the beginning of the year I made a list like that and now it seems that I underestimated my potential. From the 21 items on the list, I managed to complete 8 of them in the first 4 months of the year, 3 of them got cut of the list because of the circumstances and will never be done and I am in the process of accomplishing 5 more. So, there are 5 things left to be done for the next 7 months of this year. The thing to be learned from this is that I should do Goals Lists biannually at least.

I was also questioning myself if I have changed in these 9 months of college. And I think I did change a lot. First, I gained a lot of knowledge both academically and personally. I learned how to learn. I wish I knew this way earlier, but I think this is a skill that builds along maturity. In high-school I never dared to read ahead of what was taught in class because I considered it useless. I was thinking that if I read it before class I would either not understand it and lose my time by reading it or understand it and then lose my time in class hearing the same thing from the professor. The lesson I learned this year was that my reasoning was bad in every aspect. In the first scenario, if I did not understand it while reading it alone I could go to class and know what to ask the professor. On the other hand, if I was able to comprehend the material, I could go to class, hear the explanation again and take the knowledge to the next step, the application. This year I have also learned that just memorizing isn't enough. I am inclined to say that this is a problem that the Romanian Educational System is facing, because we were rarely asked to apply the pure knowledge from the books in order to transform it into skills. I have also started to learn how to prioritize and manage time. I am not excellent at it, but I am shooting there. Having an agenda and lists of tasks makes life so much easier and relieves the stress. Even though it takes time from each day for planning, it saves you time while executing your plan. My ideas are flying now to the Japanese Management type, a subject that I would like to further explore in one of my future posts.

I also learned how much the people in my life mean to me. I learned how difficult it is to be far from the family, from the people I love the most. I realize I need to be surrounded by people, by friends. Even if I don't have best friends, I need some people that can be at least a catching net for the bad moments in my life. I also learned to cherish diversity. One of my very good friends from Lafayette has an origin in Mexico and currently lives in Texas. I would have never learned about the Hispanic community if it wasn't for her. Other friends are from Kenya, Bulgaria, China, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Russia, Hong Kong, Ecuador, and many other countries. I start to wonder if that would have been possible at home. I am certain it wouldn't have happened. Just talking about their experiences and analyzing their way of being provides you with so much knowledge that it can sometimes be overwhelming.

Looking back with a global perspective over this school year, I can conclude it was another year of enriching experiences. I can only hope the coming school year will live up to these standards.