Press "Enter" to skip to content

The first week

Well, here we are: the first week of the semester is over and it has gone in the blink of an eye. Originally, I had thought that this was going to be the slowest week of my life with the hours of class introductions and syllabi overviews, but it has gone by surprisingly fast.

The Sunday night before my first class on Monday morning, I had many thoughts running through my head, ranging from “What if I oversleep and completely miss my class?” to, “Is my professor going to like everyone else and secretly hate me for no apparent reason at all?” to, “What if I am the only person in my class who doesn’t have the slightest idea as to what the professor is teaching?” I am sure that I’m not the only one who has had these thoughts before attending their first college class of the semester, or at least I hope I’m not.

Needless to say, I hardly slept the night before. I mean, besides that fact I was trying to prolong my last night before classes officially started, I just could not sleep in anticipation of the day to come.

I had my first class, CAL 105 (Knowledge, Nature & Culture), at 10 a.m. I was happy that my class was a bit later in the morning because I knew I was in for a rude awakening for the rest of the week to come, as I had three 8 a.m. classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Apparently I was among the lucky few who was blessed to have three 8 a.m. classes a week. I know that having this many early classes is going to get old fast; I can just feel it! Hopefully I am wrong and it won’t be as unbearable as I expect. On the bright side, in return of having classes early in the morning, I have the afternoon off, which is great for studying and winding down after a long morning of classes.

The rest of the week quickly passed in the blink of an eye, and I was left with more confidence regarding the weeks to come and the difficulty of the material I will be learning over the course of the semester. Of course, going into the first few classes, I was a bit apprehensive of how prepared I would be and how I would perform to the best of my ability.

I know that seeing the work that Stevens students are given build up to the end of the semester can make others throw in the towel and run away. What makes us different, however, is how we can all look at tidal wave of work coming our way, rise to the occasion (or maybe procrastinate a bit), and get the job done—and do it well, I might add. That is what makes us special and allows me to feel more relieved about what is to come.