By Kayla Markowitz – Editor-in-Chief

Jonathan Law Class of 2024 graduate Maya Markowitz has begun her journey post-high school as a freshman at Lehigh University studying Population Health and Sciences. 

During her time at Law, Markowitz engaged in many different extracurricular activities, which showed her how important it is to become involved in your community. 

“Some of my favorite things about college have been the opportunities here. I am always able to try new things here with limited restrictions,” Markowitz said. “I love to do new things so the past few weeks have been fun in that aspect.”

Markowitz has been spending her first couple weeks getting used to all things college. In contrast to Jonathan Law’s start time of 7:20 a.m., her classes start much later, which has made her have to adjust to new routines. 

“I definitely would consider myself a morning person, I would much rather start and end earlier so this is a struggle for me because I get kind of burnt out at like 3 p.m.,” Markowitz said. “The positive is that I get a good eight hours of sleep most days and get to exercise and do some homework in the morning if I need to.”

Throughout her high school career, Maya started most of her mornings with an iced latte before school. One returning habit Maya is struggling with is her dependency on coffee to get her through long days and study sessions. 

“Some days, I make it to class with no coffee and I am really proud of myself, and then I get to my 12:10 and see half the students in the class holding coffee cups and it always breaks me,” Markowitz said. 

Markowitz has immersed herself in many new activities. Some of these activities are similar to those she enjoyed in high school, but some are new experiences that she is excited to explore. 

“I am currently a reporter for the Brown and White (Lehigh’s student newspaper), a member of the Outing Club, Epsilon Delta Pi (an environmental honor society here), a Women’s Strength & Empowerment Society, and a Peer Health Mentor,” Markowitz said. “I have also gotten to dabble in some research in the College of Health, and I hope to travel over the summer to do actual field work.”

Like all college students, Markowitz has faced some challenges throughout her first couple weeks at school. However, since Lehigh is located on a mountain, some extra challenges have been presented. 

“I felt the usual stuff- like homesickness and academic pressure. The hardest part for me so far has been the social adjustments because It is hard to be in a new place with people from all around the world and still find things to relate over,” Markowitz said. “Physically, my campus is on a mountain so it is challenging to walk all the way to class because there’s like a million stairs.”

While Law had some great programs and classes that helped adjust Markowitz to college life, there are some things she feels could’ve been incorporated into her high school curriculum to better prepare her for the work she would do in college. 

“I would say a lot of the self-studying habits that are necessary to be successful in this environment were learned in my dual-enrollment class year, and the Senior Internship program definitely gave me a taste of what the workload would look like in college,” Markowitz said. “One thing that I felt a little unprepared for was paper writing and exams. I have never written a research paper the same way that it was expected for me to know how to do on the first day of classes.”