This past year has been a crazy one for everyone, and it feels good to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. While my high school to college transition didn’t unfold the way it traditionally does, I’d say I still had a good year and experienced a lot of personal growth both in and out of the classroom. Reaching out and meeting new people is already something that isn’t the easiest for me, but during the pandemic, it became much harder. I was forced out of my comfort zone, and thus, I experienced growth. Most people I reached out to seemed to be in the same boat as me, so I felt more confident reaching out to others. I made many amazing friends over the course of my first year and also got to know many of my professors by meeting with them outside of our class time. I’ve always been a firm believer in the idea of pulling everything out of your teacher as well as your fellow students. The virtual format of all of my classes made this challenging but it taught me to be persistent as well as patient. In the fall when things return to in person, it will be easier for me to connect with fellow students and professors, and thus, easier for me to learn as much as I can from them. The courses I took as well as the professors I had challenged me as a student by teaching me to think in new ways. I was presented with a variety of topics to learn about and was expected to research them outside of the classroom. Research and in-depth learning have always been things I love and taking this to a new level in my classes was so much fun. It taught me the importance of questioning things you read and digging deeper to form a better understanding of the content. Researching outside of class has also led to some great conversations with my teachers and classmates. Personally, I’ve also learned to do more things by myself over the last year which has been quite nice. There was a lot of risk in hanging out with other people at first, so I took a lot of time for myself and did things I love to do. I believe I’ll carry this forward into the future and prioritize doing things I love every so often. In the future, I look forward to meeting my professors in person and connecting with a larger variety of students across the University. I’ll continue to pull as much as I can out of my teachers and fellow students. After taking my first year of college courses online and making it through the majority of the pandemic, I’m confident that I’ll be able to handle anything the next few years of school throws at me.