My Transition from High School to College: Personal Narrative Essay – Free Essay Example

It was the second week of March when I started my college journey. That week I was introduced to Blackboard (an application for online learning and teaching). Firstly, I thought it would be simple to use it, that was my high school mentality as I passed grade 12 with a bachelor and I thought everything would be simple. As I thought passing grade 12 with a bachelor made me ‘Mr know it all’, but things turned another way around. The first day we started to use Blackboard to attend classes, then boom! I was unable to log in to Blackboard and that day I was not able to attend the session. I had no one to ask about Blackboard as everyone was in their due to COVID-19 (disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus), hence the study session was taking place online.

I was used to learning with a teacher in front of a class, writing on a chalkboard. But here in college things turned another way around as we were studying online. I remember when I first heard about online learning, I was happy as I am an introvert (shy). But as time went on, I realized that there were some things I did not know about online learning. It was difficult for me to adapt. I faced challenges like struggling to focus on a screen for a long period of time. As I was using a smartphone instead of a computer, my smartphone was small and my eyes were itching now and then for looking at small letters for a long period of time, as each period took one hour thirty minutes plus. I was also easily distracted by social media notifications and other sites. Also, the issue of connecting to the network or the Internet. Sometimes I was attending half a session, and other times I wasn’t even attending sessions at all because of the network. I also found online learning stressful as I was not even used to technology. I only knew how to use Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.

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Furthermore, I struggled with a lot of things, like adjusting to speaking in English every day, and it was compulsory to do so. I remember the other day I made a mistake while asking a question, I needed clarity on a question, and other students laughed at me and made a joke about what I said. I have never been so embarrassed in my life as I was then. So from that day onwards I never asked a question again, when I had a question, I would pass and remain confused as I was afraid to make a mistake. My self-esteem was low at that time. I also struggled to adjust to being ahead of lectures as I used to do that in high school. Most of the time I was behind due to me trying to understand something while the lecture was moving to another topic. I was not used to the speed they used to teach us as I was coming straight from high school.

At the beginning of my journey, I felt like I was failing myself and those who put their trust in me and believed in me. I even wanted to deregister as I was under in the first three weeks. Fortunately, I found a friend. I asked her for help as she was doing well and she was also participating in the Blackboard chatroom. She helped me where I did not understand, we did that for a couple of days, and my performance improved and I passed all my quizzes and tests. Now I believe that everything will be much better in the future and that my studies will be successful.