By Katie Sullivan, Staff Writer
It’s no secret that Newman has faced some major changes in faculty and staff coming into the 2019-2020 school year. For many students, myself included, this meant having a schedule full of unfamiliar professors.
In my case, I have a professor teaching two lab courses at the same time, a professor that has not taught the subject in 15 years, a professor that has never taught the subject, and a professor that has never taught in general.
I cannot lie, I came out of my first day of classes irritated to say the least. I felt short changed, cheated, and I had incredibly low expectations for what I would be getting out of the semester. I left Newman in May excited for my schedule, looking forward to the opportunity to take classes from professors that I had heard great things about. Needless to say, I was disappointed in the fact that not a single course I had enrolled in had the same professor as I had originally planned.
The first week of classes, I was bitter. I didn’t feel that I was being given the level of opportunity to learn that I am paying for. Due to the resentful mindset that I put myself in, I found that I was getting very little out of the classes that I was taking. I went to every class, sat there, and thought about how much I would be learning with the other professors I planned on taking classes with.
The second week of class I decided that it was about time I stopped pitying myself for the changes in my schedule. I’m sure that the professors who took on the new classes were likely just as upset as I was, if not more. Instead of teaching subjects that they were comfortable with and had planned to be teaching, they were instead adding new classes to their plates.
Not only did I realize that those professors were challenged by the changes just as the students had been, I also accepted the fact that being bitter over a few adjustments wasn’t going to make me successful. Life is going to throw you a few curveballs. Your plans will change and it may be difficult to deal with, but being resentful will get you no further than you would have originally gotten.
It took me a week to come to this realization -- six and a half days too long, if you ask me -- and to admit that that my bitterness was holding me back more than a few professors that I didn’t expect to be learning from. Who’s to say that these changes won’t make me even more successful? Only time will tell.
PHOTO: Courtesy Photo. rdgusa.com
