My College Years

9/19/16

   I start my Freshman year of college next Monday! I'm completely terrified because I'm not really that great at making friends and, if I'm honest, I hate ice-breaking games. Though I don't think that's a college thing... I could be wrong. So I live in Oregon, and the high school grads of 2016 are the first to experience free community college. Naturally, I decided to go to the closest community college to me. I know a lot of my friends are going there too to take advantage of the grant, but I don't think they really understand that college is not like high school, and that we will probably not run into each other. They aren't in any of my classes, and I don't even know how many credit hours they're taking. Or when in the day.

   I work at the same place as my mom, and she's basically my boss, so I have a very flexible work schedule. However, it's better if I work in the afternoon, so I sprung for morning classes (RIP me). I have absolutely no clue what classes my friends are taking, and when they are in the day, aside from the college prep class us Oregon Promise grant receivers have to take (the state of Oregon is forcing grant winners to take two college prep classes, or else they'll take the grant away. I had to drop my American Sign Language class so I could fit that class in without going too far over 12 credit hours). I have a general feeling of where things are on campus, and luckily all of my classes are located in three buildings that are all right next to each other.

   I went to an engineering information session, which honestly was pretty much a waste of time, and I figured that I should take an Engineering 100 class before I actually went into the 'real' classes. If it turns out that I don't actually want to be an engineer, that's fine because I will have only wasted time on 1 credit rather than 3 or 4. I also visited the campus for an Oregon Promise Orientation where they told us about the grant and gave us advice about college. Again, a huge waste of time. At least the engineering info session only lasted an hour. This orientation lasted from 8 in the morning 'til 2 in the afternoon. And almost everything they told me I already knew, and all of the advice they gave to us I had already heard. I've visited the campus many a times besides these instances (mainly because I had issues with my student account, financial aid, and generally a lot of questions my mom couldn't answer because she didn't go to college).

   I want to make a note that my textbooks for the first semester only cost $260. I doubt that'll be the case in the future, but I want to keep track of how much I spend each semester.

   I guess that's about it for this entry, I probably won't post until my first day (26th). And we'll also get to see if it was a good idea to get a tattoo at the beginning of college, because I plan on getting one on my shoulder sometime early October.

   - A