My Three Semester Reflection

I remember filling out my Scholars ranking of what program I wanted to be in--- I was upset, I don’t remember why, I think I had just gotten rejected from another university, and on a whim, I chose Media as my first choice. It seemed natural, I was an editor for the newspaper, and there was no Scholars program that fit perfectly with my major. Later, when I committed to the University of Maryland, it was the last day of April 2020, and I was so unsure of the decision I was making. My senior year of high school I had everything laid out for myself--- I had my heart set on one of three schools (back-up in case I got rejected), I had perfectly balanced my schedule and my extracurriculars, I felt I had finally found my groove in newspaper and theatre--- and looking back, so little of what I thought would happen, happened, I never wrote my last article, or participated in my last show, or went to prom or had graduation. I got into two of my dream schools and then couldn’t pay for them--- a possibility I had never predicted--- and so my choices lay between coming here or two (more expensive) schools I wasn’t sold on. I felt as if I had no other choices, but looking back, I know I made the right one. The University of Maryland, with all its quirks (and construction), has been a great place for me, and being in the Media Scholars program is part of the reason I’m so sure of that. 
My time in Scholars has been a rollercoaster, much like the rest of my peers. I started my first semester from my parents’ house in Rockville, Maryland, living in the bedroom I have had since I was four years old. It was nothing like I had expected my freshman year to start, and I itched to move out. In my first semester, I struggled. Academically, I knew I was capable, but it was difficult for me to stay focused and organized at home. Socially, I was more alone than I had ever been. So, I decided to move on campus for my second semester. It felt like the right decision at the time, and I cannot bring myself to regret it, as I think it was a lose-lose situation. Just days before I left, my grandfather was diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma. I packed and shopped for school alone as my mother flew out to Michigan for what we then thought could be his last days, and then, as planned, I moved out. I worried I was abandoning my family, but I did it anyway. I made a few friends, but they weren’t the kind of people I wanted to be hanging around with. Mentally, I struggled, even though academically I was doing as well as I had ever been. Amidst that chaos, Scholars was something easy, something predictable, and it allowed me to interact with my peers without the stress of the rest of my life. In hindsight, I wish I had been more active and involved, but I refuse to regret it because being online was hard for all of us. Shortly after the spring semester ended, my parents decided to move my grandfather from his nursing home in Michigan to our basement. It was a crazy summer, but with the return to in person, I finally felt back in the groove that had been thrown off in March 2020. I enjoyed my classes, I enjoyed my professors, and I thoroughly enjoyed coming to Scholars twice a week, a place where I could both learn and make friends.
Looking back now, I have changed and grown so much since I started the Scholars program in September 2020. Well, I haven’t grown any taller, sadly, but I have grown in all the other ways. I’ve learned to ask for help when I need it, something I’d long struggled with. I’ve made a place for myself here, and I finally feel like a full member of the campus community. I’ve become infinitely more comfortable with myself and who I am. I can advocate for myself far more than my high school self ever could have dreamed. I’ve picked up new hobbies, made new friends, and done work I’m more proud of than anything else I’ve ever done. And yet, the parts of me that I like have stayed the same. I’m glad I found a way to balance the two.  
The part of Scholars that most impacted me was the community aspect, especially in this last semester. Scholars is a place where I know people (at least sort of) know who I am, as opposed to so many classes where I’m just another body in a seat. I do wish I had been more involved in the community aspect, but I’ve grown a lot in my ability to put myself out there, so I’m still proud of what little I’ve done.
Just as Media Scholars has been integral to my collegiate career, media itself has an intrinsic role in both my life and in our society. Media has always been integral to human society--- even in the absence of written language, from humankind’s earliest years, we have been drawing animals on cave walls. Media is one of those things that helps to connect humankind through the millennia, I think it’s beautiful that there’s some natural human instinct to create and to story-tell. More specifically to my life, the media has a prime role in my life as I am very interested, academically, in how we represent history in popular media. As a history and art history double major, I am enamored with how iconography can change and evolve through the years, and how humans have changed our ways of presenting ourselves and our history. For my sophomore year research paper, I studied the film Stonewall (dir. Nigel Finch) and how the film showcases how the 1990s queer community saw their history, and how that compares to reality. Far beyond the tangential relationship I thought I would have with the Media program, it has become supremely helpful as I analyze and study pieces of media in my field of study.