304. What is your favorite hot chocolate flavor?
305. What is one interesting family picture that you’ve recently come across? Have you seen it before? What is the picture setting?
306. When did you have your first kiss? How old were you? Where were you?
307. Did you ever have a pet bird? What kind of bird was it? What was its name? Was it trained?
308. Did you get a senior ring/class ring when you were in high school? Describe it. Did you chose a unique design? What stone did you choose to go into it? Was it the your school colors or your birthstone? Do you still wear it?
309. What is one of your most vivid memories of high school? What grade were you in? What is the memory?
310. What is the first class that you attended in college? What do you remember about it? What were you feelings when you went to class that day?
This week I am doing 310. What is the first class that you attended in college? What do you remember about it? What were you feelings when you went to class that day?
On my first day of college, it was pouring rain. I was nervous, having graduated high school as one of eleven students. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I knew there would be a lot of students on campus. My classroom was an auditorium with nearly 100 students - the largest class I had ever attended at that time. I was signed up to take Biology - not something I was looking forward to, having been a poor Biology student in high school.
When I got to campus that morning I quickly realized I was lost. I was dependent upon my parents for directions - they both attended the same university and I felt certain that the buildings and their names were the same (which was pretty much true). My Dad and I had done a small tour of the campus when I registered for my first classes, but we hadn't done a lot of looking around.
The rain was really coming down and there weren't any other students around. After wandering aimlessly for a while, I found another student (with an umbrella). I asked her if she knew where the Cavness building happened to be - luckily she did. She was very friendly and let me share her umbrella. She was from a small rural town, and this was her first time at a larger (not really that large, looking back at it) school. Conveniently, we had the same class and ended up sitting next to each other for the remainder of the semester.
I remember picking a seat toward the front - and I'm glad that I did. The professor only talked to the first three rows. If you sat far away from him, he pretty much wrote you off (and I'm not sure if outside of the first three rows passed with anything higher than a C).
I liked that class, but more than anything I liked the professor: Dr. Strenth. He was a soft-speaking, sharp witted old man who talked total shit about our classmates right in front of them (and they never caught him because they weren't paying attention). He had some great advice for us, and provided an education beyond Biology that semester. He told us that we weren't obligated to sit next to anyone and that we could move at anytime. He emphasized that college was not 'Grade 13' - not a continuation of high school, but was instead something more significant. He even told us that he had failed a couple of classes and had a terrible GPA but had managed to become a professor anyway. I found him to be very encouraging. I appreciated that if he recognized a student TRYING to succeed in the class, he kept a record of it. I hadn't ever had an instructor like that before. I liked him so much, I took my second science class with him and encouraged my sister to take him for her Biology requirements.
That's what I remember about my first college class. Looking back on it, that first semester (and the other classes that I took) was pretty awesome all the way around.