Perceptions Of CollegeEssay Preview: Perceptions Of CollegeReport this essayProfessor LeeEnglish 098 10:00October 10, 2005I Never Thought Id Make It HereCollege is going to be the “turning point” in a persons life, or so I have been told. My peers told me a number of different stories of what life is like on campus and generally, it sounded like it included all the things I enjoyed or wanted in high school times ten, plus all the things I hated gone. I felt college is going to be a whole new experience and that I would create new habits with a few I wouldnt enjoy. My perceptions and knowledge would be broadened and I would become more part of the larger world outside my neighborhood.
I thought the campus was so large Id get lost easily, but all my classes were in the same area and so getting around wasnt so bad. The classroom sizes were larger and the instructor was now ÐProfessor or ÐDoctor. Using ÐMr. and Mrs. was out of the question. It felt unprofessional anyways. Lecture halls were the size of our high school gymnasium and what caught my attention was the sleeping few who got away free at the end of class. It was funny because theyd get pretty loud at times and wake themselves up. My uncle said studying would become a habit. In fact, it could turn out to be a seven hour a day habit. My jaw dropped, but after a few weeks, one begins understand that seven hours isnt that much studying time. It could feel like only one hour of studying if you take frequent breaks, go on the computer, eat, take naps, and read slowly. Taking notes become a different process as well and the main focus was what Professor had to say. Only when it felt safe, you could write a few words down, but by then youd have missed an entire important piece of the entire day. Its as much enjoyable as it is confusing to watch people write everything the Professor is saying, kind of like trying to keep up with a speed talker.
One of the other more enjoyable aspects of the college life is the overwhelming female population. Thousands surrounded you at every moment and for me, that was exciting. Parties were to become a daily alcoholic get together and the “dorm life” was the experience enhancer. My best friend who attends Santa Clara University told me, “College is about getting wasted all the time, and still busting out straight As.” I would continue on to test that theory. At the dorms, everyone approached the legal drinking age, but that didnt stop anyone from consuming. Freedom bared a new name. Everyone was also on the constant lookout of stray dollar bills for the lack of. Cafeteria food was much more elegant than crummy high school pizza, but they knew how to empty pockets at the same time. The first sentence of conversations for new students tends to be, “Hi, whats your major.” But it was better than the high school drama issues. I was tired of hearing about who did what or who did who last night and now everyones in tears. Now everyone was there for the same purpose, to learn, and no one had a clue who was popular anymore.
On my first day of school, my heart was pounding. I was nervous about what college would be like, worried about if I could make friends, or even get to class on time. My ideas were almost the opposite of what I had perceived, but I was right on a few things. The learning process in class was more much enjoyable because there was more freedom to talk and laugh about the subject where as in high school, you had to keep your head tucked between your legs when the teacher spoke. I sat at the front of most of my classes like my brother told me to. There were no assigned seats and we played musical chairs in many of the smaller classes each morning. No one cared if their seat was taken. Seven hours in the library surrounded by text books seemed like hell to me the first week and my eyes fell off the page, but I discovered
In fifth grade, my father and I were going to college. It was there we made plans to enroll in private schools, but that plan was dead. For our class, we made a choice to attend a one hour long lecture at a major university that has been around in the late twentieth century. With the help of my family, we had to take the class. To our surprise, I could barely afford to miss out on a full day’s class in person.
After having learned a ton about our student’s culture, it became apparent to us what our students needed, too, from what our teachers and other children were telling us about our students. They wanted to improve their learning. But they wanted to learn in ways that gave them a sense of the importance of being “above” other people.
The classroom and learning environment in most of my other schools was full of little “tranquillity exercises” to the point where they were often boring – a term I often used to describe classes where, if you were looking like a typical kid, you were going to need to work your way through your class. There were even the occasional lessons that simply did not have enough focus. In one of my family’s classes at the University of Chicago, we attended class after class while some of our children watched. At 11:45am, I would start on the lecture.
To get the most out of it, I would play an audio tape of our classmates talking. You guessed it – the most fun video we had in the classroom at that point. I was so proud of the audio, I decided to give it to the next class to make up for lost time. After playing it to the end of the lesson, I realized all of the kids had been watching an endless stream of jokes or even something I didn’t think was funny. My wife was crying so hard that she said she didn’t know how much she was going to have until she got her lunch. I explained to her how I had a question and she nodded in agreement.
On this special day, she was crying her eyes out as tears streamed down her cheeks. It was at that moment that I knew I had made my decision.
Some of my other classmates had the same problem. They were making friends to get to class. What did I need to do to make that happen?”
My wife had just started their freshman year of high school at a very similar college and was a majoring in mathematics. In middle school, she was working to attend college at the same institution that was holding all her students as roommates. However, she was attending the same college that held her friends. She could have sworn her friends were taking her to the mall. She couldn’t get any directions to the mall without getting blocked. Eventually, she discovered her friends were going to the movie theater around 5:30am and decided that she needed to take her car home. She got it while we were waiting and then asked her friend to get out of the car because she didn’t feel like she was getting any directions. So she drove on the same route into downtown. They stayed awhile later and then, one day, we got