How to Survive your First University Classes (Online and Overseas)

My high tech classroom/office/bedroom

If there’s one thing I learned about college is that it has an aptitude to consume your thoughts. When you aren’t spending time reading, writing papers, taking exams and listening to/watching lectures, you think about all the above and how you could perform better. Maybe other students don’t but when it’s your first class, freshman year and you’re rattled by moving to a country lacking commodities, you strive for excellence more then customary!

I decided with my unusual life, (homeschooling myself, growing up overseas, a year of exclusively language, interning with NGOs), I had to have an unusual college experience. What’s more, if you’re studying development, Africa would be a great place to live. So, it ended up being Liberty University’s online distance learning program, designed mostly for adults seeking another degree but I get the joy of being the geeky freshy of the bunch.

The day after returning to Africa, I sign into my LU portal and discover the joys of learning. A week later, I move to a strange and unusual country, pin-up my posters and decide that’s where I’ll call home. The initial reaction is shock (maybe horror and the inclination to run bawling back to…well you can’t really run back anywhere so that settles that). But with a little work and the realization that your strange online professors are actually rather nice, you can move forward. It’s not bad at all! You can manipulate your time and finish assignments when convenient and have time left over to help your 6 year old brother do math facts and make apple fritters.

So, today, having taken my final exams for my first university classes, attained respectable grades and being ushered into a week long season known as “semester break,” it’s rather easy to be pleased and decide that the online concept is rather brilliant!