6: Discourse Communities: College

Growing with up in an Asian household, I was expected to go to college. There was no question or difference of opinion when it came to the topic of college. I never really cared about that thought, though. Even I assumed I was going to college. I didn’t ask questions about why it was absolutely necessary. I just knew it was important because that’s what I’ve been taught and influenced to think my whole life. 

On my first semester of college, I realized that not everyone is actually really required to go to college. I noticed that a lot of people I graduated high school with went straight to the military, or got a full-time job, or even just took a break from school for a year to do whatever it is they need to do. I had a secret admiration for those people, actually. I admired them for being so honest to what they think they’re capable of handling at such a young age. And in a way, I was a little envy of them. I envied that they were able to make a decision for themselves while I just kinda had the idea embedded onto my brain that I was going to attend a university, no questions asked. 

College is… Different. It’s a lot different from high school, that’s for sure. In high school, you had to ask the teacher if you could even use the restroom. You had to raise your hand, wait for the teacher to notice you, then you asked if you could leave the classroom for a couple minutes to use the restroom. It’s very structured. But in college, you can not show up to class for a whole week and the professor wouldn’t even know you didn’t show up. It’s a whole different world. How do you adjust to a very structured educational setting with a million rules to an educational institution with over 34,000 students in a span of 2-3 months? The answer is you don’t. At least you don’t adjust right away. You learn to adjust when you fail your first midterm as a straight-A student in high school. You learn to adapt to the environment when you go from seeing the same 30 faces every day for a whole school year to barely recognizing one face in a sea of students in a 500-seat lecture. Adjusting to such different setting takes time, but it also depends on the person and where they came from. 

I’m a local of San Diego. I know how to get to the main places without needing Google Maps. Because I live in San Diego, I also get the wonderful privilege of commuting to school for class. It’s a blessing and a curse, really. It’s a blessing because the only thing I basically have to pay for besides tuition, is gas and the parking permit. It’s a blessing because I get free home-cooked meals every single day, and also get the comfort of using my own bathroom and staying inside uninterrupted for an hour because I decided to bring my phone in with me. Commuting is also a curse because I spend 4-5 hours commuting to school every week. That’s 4-5 hours I could’ve spent doing something else like studying or getting involved on campus. It’s a curse because it’s hard for me to meet new people and make new friends. But, being the annoyingly shy introvert that I am, I would say that that last part doesn’t really affect me as much. Even if I did live on campus/close to campus, I’d probably still have the hardest time making new friends. So I would say that the pros of commuting far outweigh the cons. Of course, adjusting to college life is different for everyone. It is different for someone from New York, or an international student studying in San Diego. How we adjust to life in college depends on where and how we grew up. 

As a junior, I’ve pretty much learned to adjust to college life. As of now, the only thing I’m adjusting to is living at home without seeing my sister everyday. She just started her first year at UCSD and my parents had let her dorm. It feels weird at home because I’m not very close to my brother so I have no one to talk to at any given time. She’s also very smart and often helps me with Chemistry (ironic right?), so not having someone to ask for help at home makes learning Chemistry more challenging for me, lol. But overall, I’ve learned how to adjust and adapt to changes around me.