School: The first week

My first week of school is almost complete. I have one class tomorrow,  then the first week is completely over.

It’s honestly been one of the fastest weeks of my life. I have been so busy with classes and homework that I have a hard time believing that the week is almost done already.

It’s also been a rather grueling week because I have had to get myself into a state of mind that I am a student again.

This hasn’t been easy to do, of course. I have been in the “work” world for 20-odd years, and have actually had quite a lot of responsibility in my previous positions, doing real “adult” work.

So stepping into some of these classes threw me right back into high school (elementary school in one class because the desks are so damned small). And I caught myself doing the same things I did in high school: following along with what the instructor was saying, but keeping to myself, not really involving myself with the class or getting to know anyone else in the room.

That actually changed today. But not in the class I was expecting it happen in.

You see, as a new student, I have to take a Student Success course, and it’s all about (as far as I can tell so far) making sure that I succeed in my studies at school. And in this course, it is (after only 2 classes) pretty much emphasized to be an active participant in your courses. You would think that this would be the class that I really started to participate in.

You would be wrong.

Turns out, it would be my English class where I would start to come out of my shell. Today, we were told to get into groups of three and figure out what we had in common. One of us would be the speaker for the group to tell the whole class the list. And I just seemed to naturally take over as the spokesperson for the group.

Then, once each group explained what they had in common, we all had to announce what we didn’t have in common. And while I was a little nervous speaking out to the class, I actually was able to do it, and even joke with the whole class about how I would rather drive in New York City then here, because at least in NYC you know everyone is trying to kill you!

I even heard a few people in the room agree with me!

During my next class, the Accounting class, I wasn’t as active in my participation, but the guy next to me and I worked together in order to do the assignment and we even got the answers correct. And we answered some questions that were asked.

So, this is definitely a step in the right direction for me. It took a few days, but I am starting to get comfortable with what I am doing.

I still have plenty of homework to do, but as I only have one class tomorrow morning, I will have all afternoon tomorrow and then a three-day weekend to get it all done. For tonight, I’m just going to read up on my economics book and then relax a bit.

Besides, it’s not like I haven’t done any homework today. I got my algebra homework done pretty much as soon as I got home this afternoon.