Coming into college ahead of the game

 STEVEN GROSSOWhen I started planning my fall semester schedule for my freshman year, I knew two things—that I wanted to graduate in three years and that I wanted to have the opportunity to take as many different classes in the LAS departments as I could. This certainly isn’t an easy task when you’re filling out your first schedule. A lot of the times you just want to jump right into studying your major or even pick which major you like most. But I had a simple solution that helped me achieve both of my goals: using my AP credits from high school. Think about it: The university is giving you free college credit for things you’ve already done and you haven’t even set foot on campus! You know those times when life seems tough because everything is piling up and you wonder, what is all this for and is it worth it? Well the answer is yes, all because of AP credit. The hard work you’ve been putting in to get into this great University is now rewarding you even more.

With my AP classes I was able to knock out a good amount of my general education credits and explore classes that caught my interest. Freshman year I was looking out my dorm room window and was just amazed at how quickly this Illinois weather changes from day to day. Since I had room to take different classes due to my AP credit, I figured that learning how to predict the weather would be very useful when dressing for class, so I took an atmospheric sciences class. Last year election time rolled around and I was really interested in the electoral process and politics, so I took political science classes in the spots that would have been taken up by general education classes. College is a time to explore any interest you have, to just learn about an unfamiliar subject, and even meet a ton of new people in those different classes. I was lucky enough to use my AP credits to do all of that so far in my time here at the University of Illinois, and now I’m even closer to fulfilling my goal of graduating in three years.

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STEVEN GROSSO

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