By Martin Arellano Martinez

Before I started college, I got to hear from many people, like professors, friends, and mostly adult people, who said to enjoy college, assuring me that this would be the best time of my life. I wondered why, or what was so special about college to enjoy, and now I have already experienced college since the first day, and it is not as enjoyable as I thought.

College started with my Ethnic Studies class on Tuesday, August 25th at 11:00 AM. This first experience was something that I never imagined to see in college. I got to the class early with my novia and a friend from high school, like ten minutes before the class. When we arrived at the classroom it was almost full, so we had to take seats at the back, near the corner of the right side of the room. We got there just on time. In less than five minutes the room was already full, with more than ten people sitting on the floor in front of the room by the wallboard and a few others standing besides the windows of the outside wall while students continued to show up. By the time the instructor came into the classroom, it was full with more than twenty students who rapidly surrounded him at his desk and asked him to let them add the class. It was a very surprising situation for me to see so many students almost begging the professor to get enrolled in the class. Ironically, memories from high school came to me, when my own friends used to plan a way to cut classes and make up excuses to have a smaller schedule. Surprised by what was happening, I thought about how dramatically different the need to study and want to do something productive is between high school and college students.

Unfortunately, the class was full, and it was only for the Metro Health Academy, which is a pretty cool program for freshman students majoring in a health career that helps and advises students to choose classes to save time avoiding unnecessary classes and finish college in exactly four years or at least a bit longer if necessary. The professor nicely and honestly told them the truth, and as soon they got it, they left the room.

In total, I am taking 17 units. It’s a lot; I can’t even believe what I just got myself into. With this MHA program, they can help us achieve our goals, but in order for us to do that, we also have to do the best we can and push ourselves to be better. It’s fundamental and necessary for me to finish with all the GE requirements to start getting focused on what I really want to study and major in. As a result of all that responsibility that I committed to take on, I’ve been spending the whole evening and sometimes part of the night at the student services building doing my homework and studying until the building closes at 9:00. Even though I don’t live on campus, I like to spend most of the time around there because it’s a very nice place to study and work where everybody is doing the same thing. Sometimes I would like to live on campus, but I also like living at home, far away in a different environment. I still live with my older brother in the Mission, therefore I have to wake up every day at 6:00 AM in the morning so I don’t leave home after 7:00 AM and be late to school. Every day I have to walk to the Bart station where I daily meet my novia at 7:00 AM. My day always stars with my math class, which is only one hour from 8:10 AM to 9:10 AM. Then I have about three hours left to study and do homework until my next class, which is English from 12:00 PM to 1:50 PM. After this class I’m free to go eat something and share some time with my novia before my last class of the day starts, at 4:00 PM, which is not fun, when after having eaten and spent almost all day studying, I still have to go to class and do more work. After my class ends, I meet again with my novia at the student center again to do as much of the homework as we can possible have done for the next day, so we don’t have to get home and do homework, unless we have to.
The computer labs are one of the most common places that are full most of the time, since most of the homework is due online or typed. Right now I don’t have a computer, and it’s very hard to do homework when I have to have it done by hand first, and then type it on the computer. Hopefully I’ll get one soon, so I don’t have to go there to sign up and wait to do my homework. Homework in college is not a joke anymore. I noticed it since the first day of classes; I didn’t expect to have that much work to do the first weeks. I had so many things to do that I didn’t even knew where to start. In the first day I had to write a personal biography about me and my critical thinking skills with a minimum of 2-3 pages; it was double spaced, but still took me a long time to write it on a piece of paper and then type it on the computer. Then for my Health Education class, I had a six-page article to read with notes and questions ready for the next class. On Wednesday 26th my second day of classes, thankfully, I didn’t get much homework, but I did have to buy books for my math class and another for the English one, so I spent most of the afternoon in the bookstore with my novia shopping and trying to organize our school equipment and our schedule.

Being a college student has its cons and pros; nobody ever said college was easy, but after all college it is a very special place and experience. There is always a little bit of everything around there, something to do. On campus we can see students skating outside of the buildings, organizations giving information, dancing, selling food and even writing messages on the floor against the budget cuts, furlough days and in favor of protests. Campus is always full of students; they are everywhere doing homework, studying, running, riding their bikes and some others sleeping on the grass or on the couches of the Rigoberta Menchu Hall in the student center. I’ve done it once; I slept there for about two hours. I was so tired from the night before that I couldn’t resist it. It’s very comfortable, but not a good idea when there is a pile of homework waiting to be done. During the first week of classes everything was crazy, and it was very distracting with all the tension around campus. This was my first college experience, and after all, I can say that it is going to be the best time of my life.