Jasmine Gonzalez, Class of 2013

Hello HGHS students,
My name is Jasmine Gonzalez and I’m currently a freshman pursuing a Biochemistry major at the University of Florida. I am certain that everyone’s experience entering college will be different, but here I’ll be sharing snippets of what my time at UF has been for the past four months. Being a first generation student I had no prior knowledge as to what college would be like. However, I was ready to take on any challenge that I’d be faced with.

Leaving high school I felt decently prepared for college. I thought to myself: "I’ve taken various AP courses, I’ve always worked hard, so no problem, I’ve got this." I was wrong. Now that I look back at my first few months of college I realize that I was still with the high school mindset. I thought I knew the material being taught in lecture and if I studied just a few days before I’d be fine. Then reality struck. After my first exam, I began to reevaluate almost every single little thing I was doing in school. How I was using up my time, my form of studying for different classes, and most importantly what and how I had to change to improve.

Thankfully I met a few people along the way who were able to guide me and I soon learned what the right way of studying would be for me. Students I just want to give you a little heads up and I’m probably sounding like a teacher right now, trying to tell you what to do and such, but it’s only the very truth. I’ll give you an example of how hard I had to work to achieve an A in my Chemistry or Calculus 2 exam. Apart from working out many practice questions every day, doing my written and online homework (yes homework still exists), I’d start studying a week before my exams. I’d review all of the material, make sure I’d understand it, and then came the most essential and helpful art of studying. Doing past practice exams. I’m not lying, but I’d usually do 6 or 7 past practice exams before taking my actually exam, and that way when the real thing came around once I saw a question, I’d easily recognize how I’d have to work it out. (I was not the only person who had to study this much to do well on exams, but actually the majority of people who did well followed a similar studying pattern). I’m not here to scare you, but I just wanted to share with you the idea that college IS hard, but not impossible.

Like a quote that I like says, “ Of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. If it’s easy, everyone would do it. Hard is what makes it great.” In my case I see my first semester as a time where I was able to really learn and grow from my mistakes. There were also times when I met new people (some who transferred with about 80 AP credits, had been President of this and that society, or spoke 5 to 6 languages) and I’d begin to think that I was underprepared for college, but I was wrong. From that I learned everyone’s case is different. Everyone comes from a different situation and it’s not right to compare yourself to anyone else.

That it’s better to focus on yourself, learn about yourself, and work to improve yourself. As you can probably tell my first semester was challenging at first, but I slowly began to overcome the difficulties and ended up passing all of my finals with As. Now I don’t want to make you think college is all about studying only. I definitely had to learn how to really balance out my time in order to fit in some fun times and activities, but luckily UF has so much to offer and I didn’t only have to do school work all semester long. Apart from attending the really fun football games, I’d go to comedy stand up shows (by a student formed group called Theatre Strike Force) and they’d be great! Not only that, but some of my favorite moments were when I was able to attend events where Vince Gilligan (creator of the t.v. series Breaking Bad) or Bill Nye (The Science Guy) came to UF to speak to a group of students. Or when I was able to go to a One Republic or The Fray concert at UF (and they were free :) I’m now excited to continue with my second semester of college and feel better prepared for what is to come! Well this was a bit of how my first college semester was. Students I sincerely hope you were able to at least take a little bit out of my experience and good luck for the remainder of your school year!

P.S. (I thought I should let you know this as well)- Dr. Louis is and will forever continue to be one of the BEST teachers you’ll ever have. Trust me when I say this! Even though, her class can be tough at times, it is one of the only ones that will really prepare you for the future .