Year 1: Trying stuff
Econ 200
When I first came to UW, I fully intended on going to med school while still completing a major in Economics. This artifact is my first quiz from Econ 200. The class actually went pretty well (up until the final), but I absolutely hated it. I found out very quickly that economics wasn't for me, and it ended up being the first in a long string of subjects I realized I didn't like.
Honors 230: Leadership, Democracy, and a More Thoughtful Public
This was the first Honors class I ever took, and it was also my introduction to the social sciences in college. This class was absolutely fantastic, and I still believe it was the best Honors class I ever took at UW. Almost two years after taking this class, I decided to switch to a social science major in large part due to how exciting this class was and how much I enjoyed it. The artifact is one of the readings we did, an excerpt from The Prince.
Gen Chem
Chemistry actually ended up being one of my favorite subjects that I studied at UW, and I almost continued on to get a chem minor even after later changing majors (9 hours of lab a week stopped me). While I was trying to figure out a lot of different things during my freshman year, general chemistry was one subject that I always found enjoyment in and it was something I was pretty good at. The introduction to 142 was intimidating, with the professor telling us the average would be a 2.6. The first exam was pretty rough, but I learned quickly and this artifact is from an exam that I managed to get 100% on.
COVID
This picture is from one of the last times I hung out with all of my friends before we went home for "spring break." COVID definitely put a huge damper on the end of my freshman year. I was really happy to see some of my finals get cancelled (except the Chem final was on ALEKS--yuck), but it sort of sucked having to go home and lose out on the independence that comes with college. I was also sad that all my friends were so far away, but I was hopeful that this would maybe only last for a few weeks or spring quarter.
Year 1
Reflection
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
I decided to leave in my Honors 100 reflection below, even though I can tell looking back that I pretty much BSed the entire thing. I can't believe how much time I spent complaining about the food at Local Point. I actually find myself reminiscing a lot about freshman year. I wouldn't necessarily want to be that dumb person I was again, but there was something really nice about living in a dorm surrounded by people you were friends with. There was always something going on. People would be studying in lounges, going out on weekends, getting caught by the RAs. Especially with COVID and the pandemic cutting freshman year short, I sometimes get a little nostalgic for different aspects of that year. The one major highlight from this year is definitely Honors 232 with Professor Soder. Professor Soder is amazing, and I've stayed in touch with him over the years. His class introduced me to the social sciences, which I eventually decided to major in, and he ended up being one of my letter of rec writers for law school. Most of the other classes I took freshman year were either boring, irrelevant, or just to fulfill a requirement, but Honors 232 was the highlight of the year and one of the highlights of my four years at this university.
Fall 2019
In my first quarter at UW, I started off thinking that if I worked hard, I would have no problem completing my intended major requirements (economics) while also doing my pre-med and Honors requirements. Fast-forward to the 4-year-plan assignment, and I realized that I had a very finite amount of time to finish all these different requirements with very little overlap. At this point in the quarter, I’m realizing that economics might not be the major for me because I struggle to stay awake in some of the lectures, and I’ve had multiple discussions with different advisors just to figure out how I’m going to make my next four years work. I’m considering a change to my intended major to something with more overlap with the pre-med requirements. I still intend to go to med school, but I want to major in something that I actually enjoy. I also realized that genetics is something I’d really like to at investigate, so a BS in MCD Biology looks like a good backup if I fail to enjoy macroeconomics next quarter. The biggest surprise from my first quarter in Honors is how much I’m enjoying my Honors 230 class. I’ve been forced to be introspective, and we also read excerpts from some of my favorite authors, including Machiavelli. I didn’t expect to enjoy a class with so much writing, because English was my least favorite subject in high school, but I found myself ignoring the negativity of the writing because the in-class discussions were so thought provoking. One thing I expected from UW was for the cafeteria to have more healthy options, but I’ve found it to be surprisingly lacking. All of the healthy options are too expensive and the portions are too small to eat consistently, but the other options are very unhealthy and limited. One thing that I want to do differently in the winter quarter is I want to make a change to my study habits. I study well, and I do well on my exams, but I think it’d be beneficial for my understanding if I form a study group for some of my classes next quarter. Teaching and being taught by others would help me make sure I understand concepts thoroughly, not just enough to do well on the tests. Unfortunately, if I hold to my 4-year-plan, I won’t be taking any more Honors prefix courses this year, so Honors 230 will be my only Honors achievement for freshman year. I’m hoping to find some experiential learning opportunities in the later quarters, and maybe even one that I can do over the summer. By the end of my time at UW, I hope that I will be preparing to go to med school somewhere (I haven’t really planned out where I want to go). I’m still not sure what I want to be majoring in, but hopefully by the end of this year or even sophomore year I’ll have that figured out. I also hope that I can complete all of my Honors requirements, and maybe even complete departmental honors as well as interdisciplinary.