Finally the Semester is Over..

As a college student I have learned that I am very independent. I’ve always depended on my mother for things and when I came to college I had to do everything on my own. I’ve never really enjoyed asking others for a helping hand anyways and I wasn’t going to start just because I had to do things by myself. I am in the middle of my learning process and I will continue to keep learning. My biggest challenges so far have been time management and secondly my priorities. They both go hand in hand with one another. I could never find the right time to finish my assignments because I chose going out to be my main concern. I was introduced to a lot of new activities such as night life and I went along with the hype of it all. Once I realized that my main focus wasn’t school is when I buckled down and put my focus back on schoolwork. I was kind of disappointed in myself knowing that I let my friends alter my decisions. Whenever they wanted to go to the club I would tell myself I had more important things to do but I wanted to have fun more. I’m glad I realized this early in the game and although I don’t enjoy night life anymore it was fun while it lasted but I had to put myself first.

I suppose my biggest achievement was growing up. I needed to grow up a long time ago and college actually made me do so. I wouldn’t say that I was immature but I could definitely say that I was very simple minded. I am grateful for this experience because without it I don’t know if I would have noticed the things I know now about myself. Another big achievement is making it to the second semester although it isn’t over yet it’s pretty damn close. I didn’t actually have any processes to make certain that I earned success in these areas. My only resource was myself. I could also say my mom was an excellent motivator from afar. She put a lot of pressure on me which was good because it was more of a reason not to disappoint her. I’m going to be better next semester because I feel that growth is necessary.

Time management was literally my enemy although my workload wasn’t a lot I became very lazy. At first I was all excited about my classes then once I got used to them I began to getting bored of school work and more excited about the club scene. For the beginning of the semester, my energy was on partying and having fun and towards the middle and the end I became more focused on school than anything. I knew that if I kept focusing on less important things my college career would have steered downhill.

My grades have been fairly decent. I’ve gotten some really good grades I am proud of that reflect on my time and effort and then there has been some grades that I am not so proud of. In my inquiry class I’m pretty much learning about how to survive as a freshman and learning tips. Anthropology class was the most interesting to me mainly because it was the study of human life and that was new to me. English class wasn’t like regular English classes I’ve taken before. We discussed more about the world and things that impact our society which was better than learning about how to write although we touched basis on that too. Math was typical, numbers, letters, and equations. To maximize my learning I am going to review and practice what I’ve learned in class that day outside of the class. At this point in my college career I am where I want to be. Happy and successful, although some of my goals weren’t met, I know that I’ve tried my hardest. 

To improve in my upcoming semesters I am going to stay on task as much as possible by eliminating outside factors that are distracting. My goals are to manage my time much better, to pass my classes, making the Dean’s list, and go on to my sophomore year. I plan on meeting these goes by being on top of everything I have to do and stay focused and not let little things affect my priorities. Next semester I plan on getting all of my assignments done rather than putting them off until last minute. Studying will be more on my agenda than anything because I didn’t really study as much as I should have instead I would think I knew material and then once I took a test I would soon find out I was wrong. Partying will not be my main goal for next semester and semesters ahead because it isn’t worth doing poorly in school. I have high hopes that next semester will be a great one.

Growth

I had goals before I came to college to do as best as I can and have my work be reflected on that. Some of the goals were mainly academic some social as well. I wanted to open myself up to new people because it’s important to make friends rather than be a “Debbi-downer” and I also wanted to check out the club scene…which got real old real fast. Anyways I really wanted to make the Dean’s list, but unfortunately that isn’t going to happen and I’m not mad because I know I could’ve put in 100 percent and I surely did not. Not making the Dean’s list is probably one of my biggest failures because I was hoping it to be a great success. Sometimes you win some you lose some. I can say I’ve successfully put in as much effort as I was willing to and the days when I felt like doing nothing I got up and did it. I will take a lot away from these experiences. In future semesters I will really and I mean REALLY try my best instead of half ass-ing something just because I don’t feel it’s necessary. Sometimes you have to put your pride aside and handle what you have to do. I’m hoping for a great college experience for the rest of my years.

Final

I’m not quite sure what I want to do for my final project and that’s scaring me! My mind switches between a video and blog post because I want it to be interesting and for people to get a feel from where I am coming from. I am going to follow the “guidelines” from the blog post about the final assignment. I think I want to have a section with interviewing my friends and how they’ve changed to see if freshmen all go through the same type of things. I also want to incorporate like a before and after kind of segment. I don’t want to get too personal but I kind of do at the same time because I have a lot of opinions on college.  Before I came in I thought it was all just a big party with harder work but there is much more to it. I have not worked up some questions or any ideas yet they are all in my head but I soon have to put them on paper. I’m excited because I really think this could be interesting but I do not want to get my hopes up for a great video. Reason why I do not want to do a blog post is because it has to be 600 words and I hate a word count limit because I feel pressured to complete that requirement; just like this blog post. Well anyways I also want to add in the video some reasons why I don’t believe I should have come to college. I’m in the middle with this whole thing.

Campus Safari: Jitta On The Track

Jitta On The Track a rapper from CT, my hometown came to Southern to perform. I never listened to him before because I just wasn’t into it. All my friends listened to him through and were like obsessed, which was annoying because I felt like they were hopping on the bandwagon. Anyways I went to see him perform because I was told that if I actually hear him I would enjoy his music. Well I enjoyed the beats but I just wasn’t feeling him still. I didn’t fancy him mainly because his ego is too high and he seemed way too cocky for my likings. Bandwagon style is not my type so therefore I still don’t like his music but he is doing good with his career he has opened up for other rappers like Waka Flak and Drake. Good for him!

Underage Drinking

My video is similar to my regular ones. I always have the same setup but that’s because it works for me. I think that it was not as good as my last one because I was rushing to get it done last minute. If I would have done something different I would have started it earlier rather than thinking I had all the time in the world. My videos theme was Underage Drinking and the topics were related to that.

twyla

I didn’t take a liking to The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp that probably a few people have, although there was some things I did “enjoy” reading. The book to me seemed like she was trying to get people to dig into their past too much and solve out more things to better their lives. Yes, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing but there were these exercises that didn’t seem so relevant and relatable. I guess maybe it’s me and I’m not interested in text like that so I probably wasn’t willing to open up to the lessons being taught. Besides all of the exercises I did think that the points she made were meaningful. For example, when she was discussing fear and distractions, both go hand in hand. You try to get over your fears but what is distracting you is that fear itself. There was some relevance to that. Also another point I agreed with was about balancing your life with you, by putting you first. You can get very far in life if you put yourself first rather than people you’re more focused on what you need to get done. If I had the chance to read the book again, I wouldn’t. 

Personal Autonomy..late :-\

Last inquiry class we met in the library to not only research autonomy but also to find out more about Buley Library. I’ve learned how to check out and find books, use the libraries website, and make the library more useful for me. It wasn’t hard to find a book once I found out its general location. Autonomy means having the right or power of self-government. So basically you can do what you please but I think to a certain extent. We were told to find a book and article relative to our subject. The book I chose was Personal Autonomy in Society by Marina Oshana. Now obviously I didn’t read the whole book to its entirety but I did come up with a conclusion to what Marina is trying to get at. She develops autonomy and how it affects a person’s relationships with others and also the absence of certain relationships socially. She argues against many things such as content, procedural and psychological accounts in regards to autonomy. Marina doesn’t believe that command over someone’s motives and their freedom to realize their will are good enough to secure the command over their life that autonomy requires. I believe Marina was the right person to publish this book because she is an Associate Professor of Philosophy. The article I found during the session with the librarian, “Autonomy and Submissive Behavior among Students at the College of Nursing” written by Leman Senturan was really helpful. Reason being is that it was research studied on nursing students currently in college and I found relevance to it because I am studying to be a nurse. The research was conducted to define and analyze the levels and relationship between autonomy and submissive behavior among nursing students. The result was that nursing students are expected to have high levels of autonomy and a low level of submissive behavior. Since I’m not already enrolled in the nursing program I can’t fully relate but I think it is good to be autonomous but better to have a submissive attitude because you’re more obedient rather than having an attitude about getting the job done.