by Charly Uc, Santa Clara University

I have finished my second quarter at Santa Clara University. My adaptation to the school has gotten better mainly because I was able to manage my time appropriately. This past quarter, the winter quarter, I had a full schedule; Calculus, Psychology, English and my first religion class. I recently checked my grades and I passed Calculus class with a B. This is something that I feel proud of because during high school I took calculus, but was unable to get above a C grade. I figured that I was able to do this because the atmosphere for academics at the university level is a lot better compared to high school. I recall my calculus teacher in high school was really good, but I was just having a hard time understanding the material. This quarter, when I took calculus again, I still remembered some of the material and what made it a whole lot easier was that the professor was really good at teaching the material and engaging her students in the class by adding material that is irrelevant to the class in order to catch the students’ attention. This quarter went really good, and I feel that now the adaptation process has ended and now it’s time to focus on continuing on the same path.

Another thing that happened during this quarter was applying for the community facilitator (CF) also known as residential assistant, and the orientation leader position. I applied for both jobs, but was unable to get either one. This was certainly not what I had expected mainly because I wanted to have a job during the summer. But I have gotten over it and I plan to apply again next quarter and hopefully this time things will change. I’m glad that I went through the process because now I have some experience which I know will be useful when applying for future jobs. I’m happy that I’m being exposed to all kinds of things because that is another way to learn in college.