Sophia Goodson

11/23/21
Honors 100

Autumn Quarter Reflection

This quarter has been a wild ride. As a second-year honors admit, I had some
experience with college last year (however stunted that experience may have been). Going into
this quarter, I thought I had a handle on things. I thought I was ready to roll for in-person college.
I was very wrong. Math 124 and Chem 142 hit me like a punch from The Rock. I had to change
how I studied and approached my schoolwork, I had to unlearn a lot of the bad habits I had
adopted during quarantine school, and I had to face the idea that I might not do perfect this
quarter. I have always been very motivated by academic success, never once having a grade
drop below a low B. This quarter, I will have to do a lot of work to face that. I’ll definitely pass my
classes and stay above the honors minimum GPA by a good amount, but it will be far from
perfect.
This quarter has been a struggle, but it's also been an amazing time of reflection and
growth. Learning without making mistakes is almost impossible. Encountering difficulty is the
perfect opportunity to look at that difficulty and find ways to address it. Honors 100 has been an
essential class for confronting my difficulty this quarter. The activities that we do in that class are
designed to help people discover their passions, learn how to study better, and get
acquainted/reacquainted with the UW.
Honors 100 helped me look at options for majors and plan out different classes based on
potential paths. This planning helped me realize that the struggle that I’m facing is actually ok,
and that I won’t drop out and fail all my classes, and that I have room to struggle and discover
learning strategies that work for me. This planning was also useful because I was able to pick a
path that reflected my interests and suited how I have done in different classes better. Before
Honors 100, I was planning on double majoring in ESS with a focus on biology and Political
Science, something that wasn’t even possible and would have been filled with an incredible
amount of the sorts of weed-out stem classes that I am having so much difficulty with. With
Honors 100, I now have a schedule plan, a realistic idea for my majors, and a plan for my
majors that has classes that make me happy and motivated to learn.
These classes are ones that give me opportunities to explore a variety of subjects from a
variety of perspectives, like the honors class I took this quarter. This quarter I’m taking Honors
210B, a class about Medieval representation and diversity. It has allowed me to connect history
to modern-day events, and has helped me think in a very different way. Next quarter, I am taking
a seminar class that is cross-listed under almost all of the general education requirements (NW
AND I&S AND DIV?!). I am so excited for this upcoming quarter and all of the rest of the honors
classes that will allow me to make new connections and think about things in new ways.
Honors 100 has really allowed me to expand my learning and be secure in my college
experience in a way I wasn’t able to achieve last year.

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