Back to school, older and wiser

Winter break is over, and though I would love to continue getting 11 hours of sleep a day, it’s about time I get back into the swing of things.

It’s the new semester.

Even with just one semester of college life behind me, everything felt so nostalgic to me the week before my classes started — the purchasing of textbooks, the worrying over good and bad professors — all of that stuff. Everything pretty much came and went and didn’t prove to be as bad as last semester, but there was one thing that I was highly anticipating: my birthday, which fell on the first day of my new classes.

I am now, officially, a 16-year-old, second-semester college student.

I was hoping to report I had taken and passed my driver’s license test, but alas, my schedule this semester is now preventing me from doing so until who knows how long. Secretly, I still don’t really mind; I like having my chauffeurs (my mom and dad) drop me off and pick me up. What was a bit nerve-wracking, though, was the trouble of getting into my wait-listed classes. Even though I already had received prior permission to be allowed into four classes, I had trouble when it came time to register. Thankfully, my birthday present came right on time as I eventually got into all of my classes without any problems.

The only thing about this is that I’ve got two night classes, so that means I’m staying on campus until approximately 10 p.m. two days of the week. I suppose it isn’t bad, since I love the classes, but I hope it won’t affect the amount of sleep I get every night; I still need to sleep to grow taller, you know! Although I spent my birthday at school with a couple of bumps in the road, it was great being able to see my old friends from last semester and meet new people I’ll be in class with for this coming semester.

One big highlight of the first week was that I got to work on an actual cadaver in my Anatomy lab. Being young and all, it’s a different kind of experience for me. I’m not going to lie; I wasn’t nervous at all. OK, maybe a little — or a lot, more or less. It’s going to take some getting used to for me and cadavers, but donors didn’t give their body to labs for students to be scared. I’ll get used to it eventually. I hope.

Also, I’d like to thank Chapman’s Honors community. I was surprised in the commons with cake, cream puffs and Fruity Pebbles — my most beloved cereal in the world. I’m so glad to be a part of the program, and thanks to Dr. Carmichael Peters for thinking of putting this together for me. As the youngest Honors Program student at Chapman, I won’t let you all down.

Now that the first week is done, there’s no going back. I truly hope this semester will be a good one. It’s only the first month of school, but I’m already dreading finals week. Is this bad? Oh well, only one way to find out.

I guess it’s goodbye to being known as the “15-year-old-boy-in-college.” But hey, “16-and-in-college” sounds good too, I guess.

Former child actor Andrew Vo is sharing his experiences as a now 16-year-old student at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. Follow him on Twitter @VoAndrew.