Finally Done with School
It all started when I decided to move to the United States after high school. It wasn’t easy getting used to a completely different culture, and trying to pass the TOEFL exam to get into college. After about 4 months of going to an ESL school and studying, I managed to pass the TOEFL exam, and decided to start from a community college. The education system in general was very different from my country, for example the fact that assignments are harder and more valuable for the most part, but I got used to it quickly. 2 years later I graduated from community college, haven’t taken my diploma from the school yet but I will soon, then I transferred to a four year college.
Believe it or not, making the transition from community college to a four year college was more of a culture shock than moving to the US. When I was in community college, I didn’t really study that much, and my grades were still very good. The only thing I had to do was to understand what was going on in the class and do the assignments on time. I thought it was going to be pretty much the same once I was in a 4 year college. That wasn’t the case at all. One of my classes was self-paced with no lectures at all. There were assignments, activities and quizzes that we had to complete before their due dates. Midterm and final exams were in person, that was the only time we saw our professor. I didn’t take that class very seriously, asking myself: how hard can it be. The next thing I knew, I missed a couple of assignments. It wasn’t easy to catch up with the material that I’d missed. I did catch up anyway, but my grade wasn’t that good. That’s when I realized that the next 2 years were going to be a lot different than the previous one. But just like everything else, you get used to that too.
After 2 years of attending lectures, writing essays, codes, presenting in front of a big class and pulling up an all-nighter at the school library before some finals, I’m finally done with college. As of now, I’m no longer a student (officially). That feels weird and also makes me proud. Let’s see if I will ever miss those school days. I probably will.
