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Schools

Bottom of the 12th: Looking Back on Big Changes

After spending a semester away from home, I look back at the past few months and what it was like starting this phase of my life.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Last year, Jacob Clemen wrote about his experiences as a senior and a college search that led him to the University of Kanasas. Clemen checked back in when he returned home for this year’s winter break to share how his first semester went.

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The New Year provides a great opportunity to reflect on the experiences of the past year.  For me, 2011 was a time of great change and growth as I moved on from home and high school to Kansas and college.  

Moving in was a nervous experience—from the moment I realized I would be gone from my house for five months to the first time I met my roommate in person. I anticipated the drastic change in geographic surroundings but was completely unsure of what to expect from the people with whom I would be living.

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There was some slight awkwardness and a feeling-out process at first, but I soon discovered that my identically named roommate would actually be easy to live and get along with. This eased a lot of the nerves that I had to start my journey through college, but I still hadn’t faced perhaps the most daunting first-semester challenge.

Several days after arriving in Lawrence, KS, I finally had my first class. I was slated to kick off my academic experience with biology at 9 a.m. Monday morning. Having never been to any of my classes, and knowing the campus’ size, I had built up a large amount of anxiety the night before my class. I ended up waking up way too early, leaving with too much time to get to the classroom and sitting for about 20 minutes in a teacher-less room fighting off sleepiness.

However, it did not take long before I felt confident navigating my way up and down Mount Oread and started leaving much later to classes—sometimes even a little too late.

The college academic experience is a completely different animal than high school. Going into my first exams, I didn’t know how much studying I needed, how long a test would take or how difficult the questions would be. After my first week, which included a writing exercise in my English class that got me a D+, I was pretty worried about how I would do at the university level. Fortunately, that writing exercise proved to be one of the more difficult parts of my first semester, and I was able to do well across the board.

Going to the football games was fun, although the expectations and on-field performance were subpar throughout the season. The basketball games, though, are really where the magic happens at KU. Allen Fieldhouse is an incredibly cool venue, and the fans are rabid.  The highlight of my Jayhawk journey so far has been the basketball game where the Jayhawks upset the Ohio State Buckeyes. The atmosphere was one of the best I have ever experienced for a sporting event. They even announced the return of the original 13 rules of basketball to the Fieldhouse and had newly hired football coach Charlie Weis speak at halftime.

There were moments in the beginning of my time down south where I questioned my decision to travel so far for school. There were times when I missed the familiarity of friends and family, the proximity of the Twin Cities and the other comforts that come from living at home. All things considered, however, I now feel confident that I made the right decision in taking my talents to Kansas. 

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