Blog #2: A Freshman's Frontier

I've always been a straight "A" student; working hard and over achieving. I've always excelled academically and allowed no obstacles to deter me from success. Over my three years of high school, I've contemplated thoroughly on potential post secondary schools. I attended several different college tours and college fairs and NEVER once thought of staying home, here in Omaha. My heart had always knew that UNO was a possibility for a four year institute, but my mind twirled around in Southern States like Texas and Louisiana. My mind danced from Texas Southern University to UNO and UNL when I read about the Summer Scholars Program. After examining the program; I made one of the mountainous moves in my life; I transitioned from high school to college in just two weeks!

One can imagine a junior, a product of Benson High School attending a U.S. History class by a doctor, not a teacher. I was now searching for a classroom on a campus full of 15,000 students, not 1,500 students. I had over forty people in class, not fourteen anymore. It was not required of me to raise my hand when I had to use the restroom, I just walked out of class now. I didn't raise my hand to answer questions, I civilly spoke out now. This was not too difficult to keep up with, but keep in mind that I was a junior; not even a senior in high school transitioning to a freshman in college. I was meek and nonetheless appalled. I felt as though I was Nemo swimming in an ocean. I realized, for the first time that there is education outside of Benson.

I have managed to maintain a 5.0 G.P.A. throughout high school and rarely ever met the need for studying, simply because I didn't have to. When I enrolled in Dr. Scherer's U.S. History course, without doubt, I met the need for studying. On the first day in class, my peers and I were distributed a course syllabus. Our syllabus consisted of many different tasks...and deadlines of which accompanied those tasks. I'll admit, I felt a rain of dismay sprinkle on my body. I trembled with discouragement and in High School, I had never before. We were responsible for being successful on 3 exams over the course of five weeks- and I knew that if I had any chance at being successful in class, that meant a great deal of studying and heavy reading at night's hour.

Don't take my thoughts out of context, I didn't struggle transitioning from Benson to UNO; I just staggered transitioning from Benson to UNO. I was intimidated by the work load but I managed to make the most out of the $2,500 scholarship I was rewarded.

After a week in the Summer Scholars Program I would say that though the academic expectations were challenging, the element I learned stemmed from one's character. I learned to have patience, as the world around us is dissimilar and inconsistent.