Last Wednesday, I had my first English class as a Baruch student. What stood out the most was the environment that I was surrounded by. My writing class at Rutgers felt more stringent as the professor outlined all the objectives and the strict requirements mandated by the department on the first day. We had a total of six papers to write, with a minimum requirement of 5 pages. However, the writing wasn’t the problem. As students, we weren’t able to introduce ourselves with each other. In fact, all of the discussions we’ve had as a group were about prompts. My first experience with my current English class helped me realize that there was much more to learn than just writing papers. We were allowed to be more open which instantly encompassed us in a comfortable environment. By receiving the opportunity to introduce myself to my peers and by learning more about them, I gained the confidence to participate more in the future. I learned that this class was more about sharing ideas and participating. Another aspect which seemed appealing was to have the opportunity to create a personal blog and post onto it while having the ability to view and comment on my peers’ posts. This experience makes the class feel as if it is based around social media by allowing peers to communicate not only in class, but also through electronic devices. Overall, the appealing first experience in this class helped me become more open with my professor and my peers.