Final Blog

Thus far my experience at Baruch College has met my expectations. I entered with a set of goals, and I appear to be on track for meeting them. I didn’t really expect anything I could have encountered here to be an obstacle of any sort, though the scheduling of classes could have been better. I prefered my high school’s scheduling system, wherein I had classes continuously from a set time until a set time with little breaks in between. I think the considerable temporal gap between classes (especially on Mondays and Wednesdays) isn’t the most conducive to my performance, for once my brain leaves academic mode it can take a while for it to return.

I think my first semester has gone decently well. My grades are all high, but I’ve recently developed grade-anxiety. After taking tests or handing in other major projects I tend to over-ponder about it even though I realize no amount of thinking can now affect what’s in my professor’s hands. I am relieved when my professors return things to me, but soon the cycle repeats when something else is due.

If given the chance, I would have either grouped my current classes more contiguously or taken more classes to fill the time gap between my classes as they currently are. Though the latter proposal would squeeze out work-study (which can be readjusted accordingly), I feel that, at the same time, it would have been a better vehicle for the achievement of my goals.

Since I arrived here, I have become more focused in my schoolwork. I have also had to become more independent, for now I have more decisions to make. For example, lunch wasn’t an issue in high school, but now, given the overall high prices and dearth of local dining options, I have had to adapt accordingly (but I won’t reveal my secret plan). I also participate more often in college than I did in high school, though it’s hard to pinpoint the precise source of the newfound confidence, which I hope will carry over into other aspects both now and in the future. Further, because of the spare time I have between classes and workstudy, I have had more time to read many interesting literary works (though most are from the philosophy anthology–I might not finish the entire thing before I have to return it, for it is a library book) such as Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols. My English teacher also recommended the author in passing, but I probably would have read him on my own anyway.

As a closing comment, I’d like to say that one of the positives is the integrating nature of the learning community system. In high school most of my classes were isolated contentwise, but here I have been able to incorporate many instances of history and philosophy in multiple classes.