Katia Babko

12/5/22
HONORS 100
Autumn Quarter Reflection

This quarter, I have learned a lot about myself and have experienced change in
how I approach courses and homework. At the beginning of the quarter, I was expecting
myself to stay organized throughout the quarter and to avoid procrastination since I
believed that dorming and living on campus would promote a more school focused
environment. While I have stayed organized in keeping track of my homework,
meetings, and classes, living on campus has not ended up leading to less
procrastination since I have seen a very similar trend of procrastination as when I lived
at home last year. This likely has to do with living in a room with two other people and
having similar amounts of extracurriculars as last year that keep me away from doing
homework. My expectations for myself now are much lower than they were at the
beginning of the quarter, but I know myself and know that once the next quarter starts it
will be a fresh slate and I will bring up my expectations for myself again. My goal is to
maintain that expectation throughout the quarter, at least more than I did this fall.
The most significant thing that has surprised me this quarter was my exploration
regarding my major. My mind has changed a lot in the last few months, but I keep
straying away from my Environmental Science and Terrestrial Resource Management
major and instead am leaning towards similar alternatives, like Environmental Studies,
or veering into a very different direction, like Communications. This change in my mind
is due to the fact that taking Chemistry 142 this quarter has really pushed me to
consider whether science is what I want to do. I am not sure that I enjoy partaking in
labs and making discoveries as much as I thought I would, and so I’m not sure that the
science field is where I should be going. Next quarter, I am looking to explore my
different interests by taking classes in various directions in hopes that this will help me
decide which path to take.
A resource that I have learned about this quarter which I believe can help guide
me towards a major is career counseling. While I haven’t had the time to actually
schedule a meeting with a career counselor, I have taken one of their free online tests
which gave me a direction of interest and focus. Their website has more that I would like
to explore, like what kind of careers my test results point to, as well as partaking in other
tests they provide. I am looking to schedule an appointment with a career counselor
before the end of the quarter.
Something that I learned about in HONORS 100 that I would like to further
investigate is the different options for Experiential Learning. Studying abroad has
always felt like an impossible thing for me to partake in, but this quarter has inspired me
to look into it more to see if there is anything that piques my interest and then potentially
organizing it and making it work. I also would like to explore leadership and volunteering
opportunities more and look for things that would be interesting to me and also allow me
to help or improve my community.
I hope that by the end of this year I will have a much better idea of what I want
my major to be and what interest I want to focus on. I hope that by the end of my time at
UW I will be passionate about what I choose to focus on and prepared to continue my
exploration in that path.
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