Year-End Review

Emeka Igbokwe

Pathways

Essay 5

May 9, 2010

Year-end Review

            In a few days my first year of college will be over. It has been quite an experience for me. I have met many new people and done a lot of new things. Socially, my year has been great but on the other hand my academic year was not that good; no where near what I planned it out to be.

            My first semester surprisingly went better than my second semester. The first semester I was totally new to the environment. I had to find out what I was doing and how to do it. Being in the pathways program I didn’t have to pick my classes because they were chosen for me. The classes given to me were English, Math, Psychology and Astronomy. When first hearing about the classes chosen for me I was a bit confused as to why they would give a Biology major an astronomy class; I didn’t make much sense to me. It actually didn’t make sense to me what I was in The Pathways Program to begin with. I knew people who did worst than me in high school who were in the school with a regular admission but I was placed into the program. Despite that going into my first year I didn’t plan to repeat the mistakes I made in high school so being in Pathways didn’t totally faze me as much as it began to as the semester went by. To my pleasure my classes were every other day; meaning I didn’t have to go to class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In my head I thought this was I very good situation for me. Whatever work I got on Monday I would just hold myself up in my room the next day and get everything I needed done. Then on Wednesday I would easily turn in whatever I needed to turn in. that was easier said than done though.

            Early in the semester my plan worked pretty well but as I began to meet more people and find more things to do, I started to stray from my plan. It was either sitting idol at the residential dining hall on going to the gym there was some sort of temptation that tried to stop me from doing what I had to do. It wasn’t even a matter of the work being hard; as usual it was a matter of me applying myself to my work. I began to fall back into my bad high school habits. The worst part about it was I knew what was happening and I didn’t do much to stop it. I was never a library person because in the past, whenever I went to the library I ended up going something that took my attention away from the task at hand. To make what I was doing even more naïve, I was doing this despite the fact that I was promised a car if I kept my grades up, but it just was not happening. It wasn’t until mid-term time that I made the decision to begin going to the library because my room situation was not cohesive with my attempts. But after mid-terms my tendencies began to come back. This time though, it wasn’t as bad and I made it to the end of the semester with an average grade.

            Second semester arrives and it starts out with bad. Because of certain issues I was not able to register for my classes until a week into the semester so I started out with a lot of work to do. The classes I chose for the second semester were English 102, Philosophy, Ethics and Sociology. Although most of the classes started off good I noticed that as I tried to work on the work that I missed in the first week I saw myself still behind but I kept going trying to do better than I did the last semester. By mid-term I was doing a bit better than I was in the previous semester but nothing too special. I still letting the bad habits stop me from getting my work done and it wasn’t making my situation any better. Spring break came around and it was well anticipated. I planned to go to Florida, have some fun and then come back ready to get some work done when I got back to school. I ended up not going on my trip and instead I stayed home. Surprisingly, I got two essays done while I was home for the week and I felt like that was a good sign. When I got back I did alright for the first week and then I went back to procrastinating. As I coasted, I saw the year coming to an end and I didn’t want to fail a class so I decided to try and get as much work done as I can.

            With the end of the semester right around the corner I came to the conclusion that in the year to come I have to do everything different. There is no way to eliminate all distractions but in order to make a change there has to be something new. I plan on cutting out my social tendencies, drastically. As cliché as it may sound the library is going to be another home for me. With the obligations I may have next year, there will be no place for coasting especially if I plan to achieve my grand plan of transferring and working towards my PharmD; a task that will be impossible if I keep the habits that I have now. Next year I am trying out for the football team. That is one of the ways I plan to use to try and help myself to stay focused. Since there is a requirement to play, I will have to keep my grades up and I’m not going to let grades stop me from playing. In the recent weeks that have passes I feel I have begun on the road to change and I plan to keep it up.