descriptive essay

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Amanda Wood September 2, 2009 Ms. Aiken English 1101 Descriptive essay My first day a college

My College Experience

My College Experience
My sister and I always used to imagine going to college. We imagined leaving to our new adventure in a minivan stuffed to the brink with anything from a mini-fridge to bath towels. When my sister, Janet, went off to Oglethorpe University this fall, that’s exactly what she did. My parents drove her to Atlanta in our seven passenger green dodge caravan. My whole family was up all night packing the van. We shoved things into as many spaces as humanly possible. We wouldn’t have been able to fit it all if my sister and I hadn’t taken the back seat out. My sister told me about her weekend filled with meeting new friends at activities the college planned for them. I did not get to go with them to Oglethorpe because I had already started class here at home. When the time came for me to choose a college I decided on Macon State College.

My college experience has been much different from my sister’s. For starters I didn’t move away in a minivan filled with shampoo and tears. That’s because I still live at home with my parents. It is rarely quiet, and it is rarely lonely, especially with three dogs, a cat and two kittens running around. I sleep in the same messy room I always have. When I say messy I mean it. The dirty clothes are speckled with bits of hard wood floors. The bed is never made and the floor is rarely swept. I have slept in that room since my parents moved in, when my mother was pregnant with my sister, Janet. My parents decided to paint the room blue then and it has been blue ever since. Of course the furniture has change over the years. Now instead of a crib and changing table, I have two twin size beds, one is my sister’s, and a white vanity set. Of course, I have two dressers in my room, the little honey colored one is mine and the big dark wood one with the mirror over it is Janet’s. Across the room is our tall pine bookcase with colorful peace signs my sister drew on the side filled with books, fifty percent of which I haven’t even opened, let alone read.

I remember my first day at Macon State like it was yesterday, or this past January. I had a night biology class that Wednesday night at 5:30. I had my dad take me early so I could buy my books and find the class room. I sat outside the room for like fifteen minutes because I thought there was another class in the room, it was just the other students waiting for the teacher. I finally gathered enough courage to go in a take a seat. I was terrified. I had no earthly idea what to except. The room had individual desks and I took one in the center of the second row. It was good, I could see, but I wasn’t front and center. The room basically looked like a run of the mill class room with the white board in front. I imagined the room to look one like the ones in the movies, one of those huge lecture halls with the desks set on stairs. Then the teacher came in and handed out the syllabus, ok I thought, I know what those are; we had them in high school. The teacher then explained the syllabus and told us what the class and then she told us about 6:30 she’d see us Monday and realized she was letting us out fifteen minutes early and told us not to get used to it.

Sooner than later, I settled into my new routine. I got used to staying from 8:00 a.m. to almost 7:00 p.m. Much sooner than I expected, I was used to the stress of deadlines. I was studying for tests, writing the final draft of an English paper, starting the first draft of the next one, and making power points, which may have been due all in the same week, if not on the same day. During my Math 97 class, the Macon State free tutoring became my best friend. I was also learned that I really needed to be nice to Google because it will help me a lot, and when I say a lot I mean a lot. I remember when I got the first draft of my first paper back in my English 99 class. I had never seen so much red pen. The teacher had circled every single time I used the word “you” in the paper, which probably would have filled half a double spaced page if I took out all the other words. Ok maybe that may be a slight over exaggeration. It probably would have only taken up like a small paragraph. The word “you” wasn’t my only red mark either. There must have been a hundred places where he had corrected commas, either adding one or removing one. He might as well have taken one of those big red sharpies, like the ones that the smell practically knocks you out after you open them, and started painting the page red. Needless to say, as the semester went on, the red pen started to disappear. By the last paper I wrote for him, I don’t think I had a single solitary “you” in the entire paper.

This is my second semester at Macon State, not counting summer, and it is not as nerve racking anymore. I have gotten used to working math problems and reading history chapters. Who would’ve guessed that in one semester I would be normal experienced college student? I know that I sure wouldn’t have.