I remember feeling very, very nervous.
I suppose any freshman feels nervous, but my particular nervousness was due to the fact that my college classes were my first experience with formal education since…kindergarten.
(I went to a private Christian school for kindergarten and then was homeschooled all the way through high school.)
My own kids have had a more gentle introduction into classroom life because of our high school homeschool tutorial and the ability to take a few college classes while in high school.
But those opportunities were not available in the early 1990s.
So, I spent 11 years outside of a classroom and then went straight into a six-class college semester.
I think my nerves were mainly due to me not knowing what to expect. What would it be like to have a lot of tests? Was the workload going to be way harder than what I was used to?
I wasn’t worried at all about the social aspect of things (I make friends pretty easily), but the academic side concerned me.
However, once I had my first math quiz, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. After that, I realized that the work I had been doing at home was at least as hard as college work and that there was nothing to be afraid of.
Go to class, pay attention, take notes, take advantage of professor’s office hours if you get stuck, study, do the homework, and you are good to go.
If I do decide to go back to college and get a nursing degree in a few years, I won’t be nervous! I know what to expect and I know that I can take a heavy load and maintain a high GPA.
Plus, I’ve got 16 (and counting) years of homeschooling under my belt, so my brain cells have been busy factoring trinomials and correcting grammar. Hopefully, that means they will be primed and ready!
That’s a huge advantage you have if you do get another degree, having all that math and science fresh in your mind from teaching it for years. I’ve forgotten almost everything
and had to re-learn geometry to help teach the fourth-graders at school. (Also learn the new math methods for the first time, but I won’t get into that. 🙂
The new math is so hard if you learned it another way first! I was trying to help a neighbor kid with her long division a few years ago and man, the way they do division is SO WEIRD to me.