It’s been three years since I graduated high school. Finally finished my first year of college. Hah!
Honestly, I wasn’t planning on having it done this soon, so I guess I’m really ahead of my own schedule. When I enlisted, I wasn’t planning on coming to West Point. I was planning on staying enlisted, doing my job for a few, or 20, years, then becoming a civilian one way or another and making lots of money doing stuff with all my Army training. Well, things have changed haven’t they?
I enlisted rather than going to college for a few reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason is that I knew myself, and I knew that unless I was in a place like West Point, I wasn’t going to do ANYTHING because no one was making me do it. I still rebel in my own little way at the Point and manage to get through things. The best example from this semester was my history class. I didn’t particularly like the class, so when I went into the final with a B- because of my research paper’s positive effect, I put enough work into the final to maintain it. I didn’t really study, because I knew by that point where the grade was going. I’m proud to announce that I got a C on the final and kept the B-.
What’s interesting to me is that while you would think I’m picking up these skills during my process of figuring out how to succeed academically in a college environment, I’m just kind of using whatever works. In general, I’m putting as much work in as I did in high school, and sometimes less. People often say that people who had an easy time in high school have a rude awakening here. I’m worried that it’s still coming for me, and that plebe year has lulled me to then destroy me in the future. I hope not.
I’m currently figuring my total GPA for the semester at 3.114 and my academic GPA at 3.222. Down from last semester, but I probably could have taught some of those courses. Physical is a different story. Gymnastics awaits me in the first block of summer.
I thought of an interesting way to look at it. West Point could be compared to teaching an old dog new tricks. I am an old dog, using the old tricks, but in a new house.
Michael
