USF students reflect on fall semester

As students get ready to go off on Christmas break, they find themselves looking back at the best and worst times of the semester. ORACLE PHOTO/JACKIE BENITEZ

As college students around America begin studying for finals, they also find themselves wondering where the semester went. It still feels as if the past three months sped by faster than usual.

For some USF students, it was an average semester without much fanfare. 

“I feel like it was OK,” Katarina Bojkovic, a junior double majoring in English and pre-medicine, said. “I think I was kind of weighed down a bit sometimes because of work and personal stuff happening throughout the year, but it was alright. Had better, had worse.”

On the other hand, for some, underestimating classes ended up making the semester harder than it needed to be.

“This, with my classes, is the easiest semester, but because I thought it was easy, I didn’t take it as seriously,” Kaitlyn Sardina, a junior majoring in business management, said. “So, now I’m trying to catch up on everything and I’m stressing.”

At the beginning of every semester, most students find themselves making goals for the next three to four months, whether for their academic, personal, or professional lives. Depending on how high an individual’s bar is set, these targets can either be easily achieved or the reason for a tiring school term.

Dhruv Anand, a freshman majoring in accounting, set out in late August to end the semester with a GPA over 3.5 and was pleased when he found out he accomplished his objective.

However, when some students realize they can’t attain a goal, they trade it in for another. Bojkovic tried to get all A’s, but changed her plan after a while.

“That didn’t pan out,” Bojkovic said “But I got a dog. That was exciting.”

Arthur, her pomeranian-chihuahua mix, ended up being the best part of her semester.

With just a week left until students go off on holiday break, the only thing left to worry about for most is passing final exams, but this often proves to be the most demanding part of the semester.

Diana Gonzalez, a junior majoring in business analytics and information systems, has four exams to take before she leaves: two back-to-back on Saturday, one on Sunday and the last one on Thursday. Her problem is finding equal time to study for all of them.

For some people, like Gonzalez, who works full-time, holiday break does not equate to less responsibility. However, many college students, including Sardina, are using the four-week vacation to catch up on the elusive commodity that seems to evade them eight months out of the year.

Sleep.