Diego Garcia (L – NHS FHL) Amy Garvey (Mt. Sinai)
First Day of Classes
Today was my first day of classes in college. Everything went great at first, but then I had a horrible end of the day. Today is Tuesday, so I had Writing and Rhetoric, Calculus, and Microeconomics.
Getting to wake up at 10:30 to go to class was great. It’s like having late-start at Nogales High School but everyday. Overall, each of my classes seemed pretty strict with attendance, grading, tardiness, and other things like that. I don’t know why, but I imagined the classes to be more laid back since I thought they would be larger.
Well, since Notre Dame is big on small class sizes, all of these – except for microeconomics – had less than 15 students. Going through the syllabus of each course intimidated me as all courses seemed demanding. I feel like I am going to have to become more disciplined with studying and start putting more time into my work. Maybe being intimidated is only natural of a Freshman in college and hopefully the classes won’t seem as tough.
Getting Prepared and Getting Around
After finishing my last class of the day, I decided I needed to buy all my school supplies. However, the only place in campus to do so is the bookstore, which is really expensive. I rented a LimeBike, which is a bicycle rental system that the university offers for only one dollar per hour, and I decided to ride to Walmart since Google maps said it was only 30 minutes away. Well, Google lied and I ended up getting lost. All in all, it took me an hour and a half and all my energy to reach Walmart. This isn’t a problem in urban universities, but if you attend a rural one, make sure you have ways other than Uber to go grocery shopping and such. The worst part of it all was that Walmart didn’t have much school supplies, so I decided to take an Uber back to campus and just buy everything there.
I also bought a lab package that was required for chemistry. It cost $283 and only came with a lab coat, some notebooks, and safety goggles. That made me want to search for the books I need for my other classes and each were around $200. I wish finding books was as easy as checking them out of the bookstore like I did in NHS. But, it is what it is, and one just has to find the best option for him/her. I’ll look for used books, or maybe even rent one for this semester only.
I ended my day with eating a nice, big dinner at the dining hall and playing some GameCube with some of the guys in my dorm. It was a good way to end a stressful day and I’m sure tomorrow will hold something better.