Give your school a chance. You haven’t even started taking classes for your major yet. Don’t assume everything from now on will be as “easy” as it has been so far.
How much older or wiser are you now than when you started college? I’d say about 4.5 months.
Be thankful you are having fun experiences outside of the classroom.
I’ll be honest and say that I think you expected a life-changing experience the minute you stepped on campus. College is rarely that. Adjust your expectations. If you find your work is too easy, seek out ways to make the academic side more challenging. Getting involved with research can do that. Start by getting to know your professors more in depth. Go to office hours. Too many students don’t do that. Those who do will reap rewards.
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In addition, many frosh who come in with AP credit repeat their AP credit. This is commonly advised here and sometimes by frosh advisers at colleges (advice I do not generally agree with). But it can lead to new frosh feeling like they did not learn much in their first term.
New frosh may also get advised to choose easier courses first semester, because many new frosh have difficulty with the transition to college. But that can be a disappointment in learning for those who do not have difficulty with the transition to college.
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So your first semester of college is not challenging. You know what I say? Awesome!
So many student’s don’t feel this way and maybe even some of your friends. Nothing wrong with being super smart. But…. Many don’t feel this way and college is a big adjustment since it seems in high school no one studied and many realize they’re not all that in college.
My friends daughter was approached by several of her professors to be a TA since she got all As. I am sure if you had a study group you could really help many many student’s with your knowledge. I never found college easy. I wish I had your ability.
Also as suggested start your own program /club /activity. Sometimes having too much time can get in the way. My son took 18 credits, started a major org and worked. Without the work he felt he had too much time.
Also talk to your advisor for your next semester classes. Sometimes even in the same sequence you can take class B instead of Class A with class B being the more challenging /interesting class.
It’s fantastic you have a friend group. That is also challenging for many first semester /year at college students.
But I do promise you college will become more challenging. You might even look back at these comments and wonder what you were thinking. Lol
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Great post. My D was also approached about being a TA in her writing class. She also became a test grader and a writing tutor. All those jobs led to her name being known by profs and she was approached by them for various opportunities, including research. As she went through college, it became more challenging in all regards, and it pushed her to perform.
OP, it’s going to get harder as you take higher level courses. There are lots of ideas here about how to challenge yourself, so go for it.
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At least you made the choice with your eyes open. To be forewarned is to forearmed.
Just a general note, but first terms of college can be funny. Superficially-similar applicants are in truth arriving with all sorts of different levels of preparation. So some accomplished HS students really struggle to make the transition smoothly, others feel it all seems easier than HS, and everything in between.
I do think in most cases, it gets better. People who struggle initially acquire the skills they need to do better. People who find it too easy initially get to classes where it is more challenging. And so on.
But if you truly feel like you could get a lot better education somewhere else, you can in fact consider transferring. Again, I think most people eventually realize they can make it work at their first institution. And some transfer and find the grass isn’t greener. But some transfer and it works out great. So you can keep that in mind.
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And you must be very aware that so much of what you see on social media is fake/curated to project the very thing you say here.
Please give this thread a read. There are many others who feel as you do. There is a great student film linked in the thread that you might relate to. I certainly wouldn’t make any assumptions right now based on the first semester. What you say here reminds me of things my kid said in her first semester at an LAC. By the time she finished her masters at a notoriously rigorous university, she felt that had been easy and that her undergrad experience was more rigorous. Best of luck wherever you go.
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this!
I know a lot of people who say their kids think the first semester is easier than HS - I think it is a mix of a) actually easier classes b) fewer classes, c) less pressure overall. Bear in mind classes do get harder / more interesting, and pressure will ramp back up eventually:)
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I found my first year of college very understimulating academically—like you, I was mostly fulfilling requirements—but look back on it fondly for the experience of living in the dorm, making friends, going to parties, and finding an activity to immerse myself in. By middle of my second year, I was past most requirements and able to focus on my areas of academic interest. From then on, I found my classes incredibly engaging and ended up double-majoring.
So from my perspective, you’re in a pretty good place. Enjoy the social side now and get yourself established so that you can really zoom in on academics as things get more challenging and interesting.
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Yeah, the other extreme of really struggling academically is not great as it can dominate the whole first-year experience. Obviously ideally everything would be awesome from the start, but if you had to pick something not to be immediately awesome, finding it too easy to do well in your classes is not a bad pick!
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I agree with the suggestion to take one class in something totally different than anything you’ve ever studied before. Tibetan art, Swedish, poetry, dance. I took two experimental studies course (not as a freshman but I think as a junior) and I probably remember more things from those classes than any other classes I took. One was War Movies, about movies made leading up to WWII, made during the war, and movies about the war made after the war (not all made by America). We learned about who controlled the film stock and thus who controlled the content of films (and news reels, and commercials). We learned about actors who were also in the military (like Jimmy Stewart), how movies like MIdway (where almost everyone dies) were considered recruitment films. This course was taught by a couple of 25 year old guys who were not professors but (obviously IMO) did a great job.
Second was Genealogy, taught by someone who could have been my grandmother (older, no college degree). Long before the days of Ancestry.com or DNA testing. We learned about the history of names, of O’, sen or son, Mc, Mac, owski, sky. Of using church records if no official records are available. Of searching church graveyards for names. Of Ellis Island name changes. It encouraged a lot of 20 year olds to TALK to grandparents to find out what they know before they are gone. I still have the charts my grandfather wrote out for me for this class; he died 3 years later.
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Absolutely! I was intrigued with China after my grandparents went there right after Nixon’s famous visit. In college, I took a random course on China’s Cultural Revolution. I was feeling lazy that semester so I took it pass/fail. I ended up acing it to the point that the professor wrote a note on my paper asking why I had taken it pass/fail, to which I had no good reply. The course fortified my fascination with China even more. In 2012, we finally went to China, kids in tow. I would go back tomorrow.
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