The College Experience: A personal essay encompassing my journey as a UH student

ONDecember 5, 2018, I received an e-mail stating my acceptance into the University of Houston. Since then, I have found my forever home that has housed many fulfilling experiences for me.

Starting off freshman year with my close friends,

I was introduced to the campus lifestyle every day and living on campus made adapting easier for me.

In the first few weeks of freshman year, I took the time to attend all of the fun events UH was hosting. At these events like the 2019 Glow Party and Cat’s Back, I met some pretty fun people who I ended up getting closer to and hung out with throughout the rest of the school year.

Before UH, I wasn’t a social person and preferred to stay with myself or my close group of three friends, but that changed with the new environment I was in. I was constantly forcing myself to break out of my shell.

While living my college dreams, I was still struggling to adjust in making decisions on my own as well as navigating all things enrollment.

Story by: Lisa El-Amin

Graphic by: Juana Garcia

Nobody in my immediate family went to college or had any idea how to help answer my array of questions leading to many troubling trials and errors that I figured out on my own.

As far as my initial experience with courses, my college offered a program called ‘Classmates’ that allowed for a majority of freshman students in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences to take similar classes.

This created familiarity for myself and others leading to people reaching out to study together or even meeting new people that I share something in common with. Nonetheless, UH has made me feel welcome as well as created a suitable environment for me and many others to continue my education.

Like a lot of students, the pandemic shifted my motivation for school. I went from attending classes every day and following through with my assignments to feeling apathy and the fear of the events happening in the world.

Forced to be away from school and back home in an environment that I loved, but couldn’t stay focused in, made the task of coursework incredibly draining.

Since classes became faceto-face again, I decided to take back my motivation and put that towards becoming a better version of myself.

During last fall, I joined The Cougar as a volunteer writer with big aspirations to get involved and meet new people.

Being a part of The Cougar has taught me an amazing amount of skills and patience. I have created memories with my coworkers and gotten the chance to experience this campus along with this city in ways I probably wouldn’t get to under other circumstances.

I currently am finishing my junior year of college and am very nervous, but excited about what the future will have in store for me.

The biggest lessons that I have learned during my time at UH are to take advantage of the resources on campus and to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.