(Courtesy of Guest Blogger Tiffany Moore, HGR Industrial Surplus’ 2016 S.T.E.M. scholarship recipient and Ohio Wesleyan freshman)
On Aug. 20, 2016, I said my goodbyes to my family and friends and set forth on a new chapter in my life. I was nervous but excited at the same time. So far, I have been in college for five months, and I have learned more than I could ever imagine. Some of my closest friends are from Ethiopia, West Africa, Pakistan, Tennessee, Chicago, and Boston. We have learned so much about each other and our different backgrounds and are still learning new things every day.
There is about a week left of the fall semester, and I have been doing a great job of staying on top of the college workload. The library has been my best friend. Sometimes, I stay there until 2 a.m. This semester, I took classes that would go toward my general requirements for graduation. Those include, French 110, Beginning Acting, English 105, Journalism 101, and UC 160 (required course for all freshman). I have enjoyed taking these classes and I am looking forward to my spring semester where I will be diving into computer science, French 111, Black World Studies, and Intro to Film.
My favorite class this semester is English. This class has helped me to become more confident in my writing for all of my classes. So far, I have written around 13 papers. That’s almost equivalent to the amount of papers I’ve written over my entire four years of high school. The class that has given me the most trouble is French. In high school I took three years of Spanish; so, I decided to try something different. Since, most of the students in my class has had experience with taking French, we get through the material pretty quickly. However, it takes me more time to retain all of the information. So, throughout the course of the semester I’ve gone to tutoring sessions and also linked up with a few students in my class to help get a better understanding of the material.
On top of being academically successful, I am also a member of the Ohio Wesleyan track and field team. We recently had our first meet in Cleveland at Case Western Reserve University. I participated in the women’s high jump and 200-meter dash. I love being a member of this team, and I am looking forward to seeing how our season turns out.
While being in college I had an opportunity to apply for a summer internship with Rockwell Automation. There are many other internships that I plan on applying for through Ohio Wesleyan that are geared toward computer science majors. I am happy that I chose to continue my education here at Ohio Wesleyan, and I am looking forward to spending my next three years here.