By Zhifei Ling | University Studies | Class of 2023
Academic Term of Essay Subject: Fall 2019

Before I went to the United States, I think the education in the United States is to let students play while learning, not painful, students have a lot of extracurricular hobbies. To sum up, they are quality-oriented education. China is exam-oriented education. However, in the eyes of many people, Americans do not love learning and study poorly. When I came to Miami University, I found that the previous concept was incorrect. American studies are very rigorous and difficult. Therefore, I encountered some problems in self-learning in the first period of time. I gradually realized what problems I had and adapt myself to Miami University by the following methods. I have gained a lot in this process, and I feel the charm of coming to the university.

First of all, students should learn to use their spare time for self-study. The knowledge taught by professors in class is far from enough to cope with exams. Learning in your spare time seems easy, but it’s actually hard. Because no one gave me a direction when I was learning by myself, I needed to find materials to solve my own problems and select useful fragments from a large number of materials. The first time I did an American history assignment, the teacher asked us to choose a topic and write an essay. I was surprised why the teacher didn’t give us the textbook and materials. Later, I learned that I had to find the topic and content suitable for myself from the library. So I spent most of the first week of September looking up books in the library.

At this time, the temptation from the outside world is also very dangerous, such as sometimes people ask me to play games when I am doing my homework, or ask me to play basketball when I am looking for information in the library. At such times, I hesitate to put down my homework and go out to play. At the beginning, I sometimes could not resist the invitation and went out to play before finishing my homework. Last week, for example, I finished my homework, but I forgot to submit it and went out to play ball, which directly caused my homework grade to drop ten points. However, after a period of time, I became calm and knew clearly when I could finish the homework and submit it. I don’t go out to play until I’m done my homework.

Third, team working with classmates is also worth mentioned. I was always finish my homework along in my high school. But I realized the importance of teamwork in Miami University. Effective teamwork will make the job more efficient becuase each member of the group has its own unique ideas and a unique understanding of things, so that we can collect multiple opinions to find the most efficient way to finish our assiment. When i did the group summary response essay in first time, I always put my comments and articles into our documentation and don’t listen to the opinions of other members. In the end, we got a bad grade. When I was very confused, the professor showed me the articles of other groups. I have seen many novel ideas in those articles that come from the various ideas of the members of the group. I then worked with my team to complete this article. In the second revision, we got very high results. After that I will listen to other people’s opinions with humility.

Studying in Miami University requires not only the ability to live independently, but also the ability to be mentally strong, to deal with stress on your own and to manage your time wisely. Sometimes studying abroad alone is not a bad thing. Adapt to the new learning environment, will let the heart become stronger.