And This Is It !

This semester definitely didn't end the way I had wanted it to and that’s all my fault. Of course I know that old habits die hard but I feel like I really let myself slide to the bottom during the end of the semester and because of that my grades have suffered and I didn't reach the  initial goal I set for myself at the beginning of the semester.  So you might be asking yourself what happened to make me fall so off track, and that is, a college student’s worst enemy, PROCRASTINATION!

I have always been bad at pacing myself and stretching projects. In high school it worked for me, I got the good grade and I did it all in the same night, but my luck ran out.  One of my biggest issues was just getting my assignments done on time. All the deadlines were outlined on the course syllabus and I always just felt like I had a lot of time to do it and then before I knew it the due date had gone by and I had forgotten to do it. Once the due date had gone by I just felt like “what’s the point, it’s already late?” As the semester flew by I started to notice that once I gave myself that excuse, I started to use it again and again. At one point procrastination turned to lazy and then I just couldn't get out of it. It’s not that I didn't realize that what I was doing was bad and stupid but I could not get myself motivated enough to do it. Now motivation was indeed another issue I had this semester. My goal was to do well my first semester, which is pretty general, simple, and superficial and that’s because I’m not really working towards anything. I have no clue what I want to major in or what I want to do in the future, and so I wanted to do well because I knew I should and not because I was working towards something better or a long time goal. Being surrounded by people who knew what they wanted and were striving for a future job or to get into a program and here I was clueless to what I want and it just took a toll on me and my work habit.

The fact is, to surpass this and overcome this obstacle I have to learn to be okay with not knowing right now.  I have to accept that it’s okay to be undecided, but also realize that even if there is no further goal in front of me right now, at one point there will be, and if I don’t do well now I could be jeopardizing that future goal for myself. The second step to surpass this obstacle in my college career is to just get up and do what I need to do. The hardest part everyone says is just starting, so if I could get myself to start then everything else will just happen. Well I mean not happen because I still would have to make it happen but it would be easier for me do and finish the assignments if I could just get myself started on them.  

Looking at the future, for next semester I do hope that I come closer to figuring out what I want to do in the future, but if not I want to feel like I’m doing something useful with my time here, and that I’m not just being a leave left to the mercy of the wind. If I can do that than I know that I can kick my procrastination problem in the butt and do as well as I wanted to. I want to have a successful academic career here at Southern Connecticut State University and I’m going to make it happen this semester. 

The Final Count Down Begins !

For my final self-assessment assignment I have decided to do the blog post since videos are definitely not my strong point in this class. The brainstorming process was easy enough to do. It was really hard bringing up the areas that I still need to work on such as procrastination because I can’t believe that a whole semester just flew by and I am still holding on to high school habits that aren’t going to let me succeed in college.  Sometimes I feel like because I am a procrastinator people think I am not serious and that I don’t care about my education, which is false, so I think I want to address that problem a lot for my self-assessment blog. I also decided that I would like to include how I did not meet my goals this semester, and I know that it sounds like a very negative blog about myself but it’s definitely  something that I feel I need to see written out, kind of like a wakeup call.  I’ve spent most of this semester stressed over picking a major and I am still undecided and it still freaks me out. It seems that everyone has a plan, a path they want to take and I feel like I am just wasting time. That has made a huge impact on this semester because I felt like I didn’t have a certain end goal to kind of keep me going and it’s been a real struggle for me to accept that not having a clue about the future is really okay, so I also want to include that. At the end I want to discuss my future goals and my new plan to try and achieve those goals. 

What Makes SCSU Great Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwcgmU4z2w&feature=player_embedded

Campus Safari #5 SCSU vs. UNH

 VS.

  This Saturday I attended the football game between the Southern Owls and the UNH Chargers. Unfortunately we were completely man handled and lost 9 to 38. Although we did not win I did enjoy my time there. There was a lot of school pride from both schools, but nothing to the extreme. They were both good sports, not only the players but the viewers as well. I had a very good time because there was so much enthusiasm in the crowd and the atmosphere was so positive that it would have taken a lot of work to not get pumped up or riled up.  I have to say though it was a little embarrassing that we lost by such a large margin especially because I went with my friend who is a student at UNH, but since this week has been so focused on school spirit, I stood by and showed pride in Southern even though we suffered a humiliating defeat.

What I Think About Tharp

After reading the first three chapters of “The Creative Habit” my initial thoughts were that it really was an interesting, fun, and easy read. The actual set up of the book with different fonts and sizes makes it hard to get bored or drift off and the actual content is interesting to read as well. I found this book to be interesting because a lot of what she mentions is very conflicting with what I have grown to believe. Her idea that creativity is a habit and is trained through a routine was a very different idea to me. Like Tharp mentions most of us do believe that creativity means on the spot and spontaneous, and that it just comes naturally. I am not a dancer but I do draw and paint, and now that I have been introduced to this idea, I really started thinking of what I do and how I create my artwork. For me, I realized that everything is very much planned. I sit there and I think of what color I want to put where and from there I have to think of all the other colors that I am going to use and where I want to put them so that they go together, your basically trying to think three steps ahead. I never realized I did that, I always just imagined that I had that picture in my subconscious and it all just flowed unto the canvas in a strike of creativity. I also realized that I do have a routine when I am trying to create art. First off I always do everything on the floor, so I set all my materials in front of me and I blast my music. From there it’s easy to see all my materials and visualized what would go together and what I can create. Another idea that I think Tharp was right about it, is that we fear creativity. I feel that fear all the time when I first start off. The first line is always the hardest because you’re so afraid of ruining the canvas or of not creating something good enough that you do become paralyzed by that fear and a couple of time I did end up just putting everything away because I just didn't “feel’ creative at that moment. I am interested in learning more about Tharp’s ideas and suggestions of how to be creative in the readings up ahead, I can tell that this book is not only fun to read but it really does make you think out of the box and or out of the normal for you, and I am excited to read more. 

Reflection: Video #2

This video project, I thought was a lot easier and more enjoyable than the previous. Having already experimented with the iMovie process of actually putting the video together and having an idea of how to navigate through the maze that is iMovie, the process of putting it together was easy and for me it went quite smoothly. I liked this video project better mainly because I did not have to get interviews. Last time this was one of my biggest problems because the audio from the recordings I took would not play and it was complicated to make the video run smoothly, so that it would look like it flowed. For this assignment we were able to be more creative. We picked our own topics and really didn't have many criteria that we had to meet. This video I think I did a lot better than my other one, mainly because I already had practice with the iMovie program, and secondly because I planned better. I left myself enough time so that if a problem would arise I had enough time to fix it, I spaced the work out, and I didn't procrastinate. As far as how good I feel about the final product, I would say that I am pleased, I mean there is always room for improvement and more that one could have done, but I’m pretty content with it. I think that one of my video’s strength is in the pictures and the set up of it. I feel like I did a good job distinguishing the intro, the middle (informational part), and the conclusion. I feel like my video lacked in the audio department. I did my video in the Mac Lab at school and I wasn't quite sure of how to get my music to the computer to be able to use it. So that is something I should look into for the next project.  Even though this time around I had a much more pleasant encounter with the video assignment, I still wish we didn't have to them. 

Midterm Grades

So after what seemed like weeks of being stressed out over midterms, I finally know where I stand academically. I am actually pretty content with my grades except for my grade in my online communication class. I feel like the first semester probably and hopefully is the hardest, just because you’re trying to get accustomed to the “way” of college and basically you’re developing your habits a little more.  I also like to think of the first semester as a test trial, you see what does and doesn't work for you and you improve the second semester. My grades do and don’t represent the effort I put into a class, for example in my math class I don’t put any effort into it because it is very basic but I still received an A. But in my Online Communication class because I don’t like it I don’t put in as much effort as I should and I received  a C so that did reflect the amount of effort I put in. As far as how content I would be if my midterm grades were my final grades, I am torn. On one hand I receive three As and I’m completely satisfied but on the other hand I received a B and a C and though some might say that that’s good I don’t want them I want the A.  To get that A I know that I have to step up and do more, I now also have confidence in myself to get the top grade, to know that it is achievable as long as I do what I am suppose to do. 

Finding Art

So for this week’s post we had to go around the school campus in search of art. A while back I walked around the John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts, and found some pretty amazing stuff. The paintings that called out to me were mainly the abstract ones, with bold colors. The one painting that I want to talk about is this one:

So what I like about this painting is the mainly the placement of the colors and the strategic placement of the black to sort of even out or balance out the painting. I also like the paint splatter component to it of the white mixed in with the blue to make it pop out. It reminds me of graffiti art done on buildings and I really loved that about this piece of art. So to me the background of the painting seems to be buildings and it is overlapped by many different colors, what I interpret from this is that the background is representative of a community and the colors represent the many attitudes or personalities of a community. The white splatter to me means uniqueness within the community, standing out within a group of people that are all unique and equally distinguished. This painting reminds me of Southern and the message that it tries to send out to all of its students; that we are all part of an amazing community where each and every one of us has something unique to contribute to the community.  Overall I think the painting was pleasing to look at and because of the bold colors it stands out and I love the fact that it is abstract because you’re able to make your own conclusion of what the painting means. The artist definitely had a motive and message that they wanted to share with us but ultimately in an abstract painting it’s the viewer who gets to discern the meaning that’s “right” with them.      

Campus Safari

For this week’s Campus Safari I wanted to talk about the major exhibit/exposition we had last week. I personally did not find it helpful for two main reasons; one is that there wasn't really anyone to help those who were undecided and two all the majors wanted me to ask them specific questions but I didn't have any really prepared. I felt like they found it annoying to answer basic questions about the major but for someone like me, the basic questions are what is really important to get a feel for that specific major. I also found that with some majors I would stand there and pick up brochures that were on the table, but the people didn't seem to interested in the fact that I was there and carried on with their conversations. For me this major exhibit was a fail because I feel like I didn't get the help I wanted. 

Some Down Time

To relieve some midterm stress I decided to do a little shopping in the school store. I went in with a couple of friends and looked around. I really wanted to show of school spirit by getting myself some Southern Connecticut State University sweat pants and a cool hat. I don’t know why but that store is very expensive. So anyways then I went to the game room but that really wasn't fun to me. I can’t play pool or ping pong so I left within a few minutes. Since I couldn't find much to do I decided to just sit in the student center and chill. I haven’t really had the time to just sit, relax, and do nothing, so this was a pleasant time. My friends and I finally got to catch each other up on our lives and have a moment to breath. We saw how amazingly fast our lives are moving now, with all our busy schedule keeping us from doing the fun stuff we used to take for granted. Even though hanging out and talking might not seem like a fun activity, it was exactly what I needed to unwind, get my thoughts together and take a much deserved break from the tortures of school. To be honest midterms weren't nearly as brutal as I had thought they would be but all the psychological damage it did to me was definitely bad. I still have one more to go but thankfully now I finally feel like I can take a breather but not really because the workload has not lessened for any of my classes and I am predicting that my courses will only get harder. Besides since midterm grades have come up, I have realized that I need to work harder. 

Reflection Piece

My goal for this semester and college in general is to do the best I possibly can and keep on top of my assignments which means no procrastination. I found that my courses were relatively easy but most of them required a lot of work. I tend to put things off that are undesirable like homework and projects which has definitely impacted my grades in a negative way. I know that for this class in particular I always slacked on the “Campus Safari” posts because I would always think that I had extra time to do it, but then the weekends would come and I would totally forget about it.  I guess that during this half of the semester, I felt like I did just enough to get a decent grade instead of trying my best and trying to go beyond what I think I am capable of doing. I've had one midterm so far and one on Wednesday but I didn't and haven’t set aside time to study. By some miracle I did very well on my first exam but I shouldn't expect to get that lucky again. For me the biggest issue is just getting into a good work habit, I can’t explain why it’s so difficult for me to just get things done on time but I have to do something to change that. For the semesters to come my new goals are to stay ahead on school work, so that I don’t feel overwhelmed when a lot of work is due. Another one of my new goals is to do the “invisible” work so that I can go that extra mile and earned the grade that I want. As far as what I am going to do to change my procrastinator ways I have no idea. It’s hard to change a habit you've had for so long but I guess I’m just going to have to kick my own but to really stay ahead of the game so I don’t fall back into my old routines. 

What Mindset are You?

The book Mindset incorporated many concepts that we have been discussing throughout the semester. Things like motivation, failure, innate abilities, hard work, time, and effort where all topics of discussions when learning about the two different types of mindset, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. A person with the fixed mindset fears failure because they feel like they themselves are failures instead of learning from it. They also neglect hard work and effort because to them it’s either your good at it or not but it is not up to you, it’s what your born with. In the growth mindset putting in the time to get better and learning from failure are the key to success.

How this book relates to me is that it showed me that I sometimes can get caught up in the fixed mindset ways. I wouldn't say that when I fail at something I feel like a complete failure but I do tend to think “well this is just not what I am good at” and I give up. Also for a big part in my life I would say that I was a believer of innate talent. You were born smart, or born talented but the talent couldn't be acquired and that sort of stopped me from doing a lot of things I wanted to do. Mindset is also a continuum with the fixed mindset at one end and the growth mindset on the other end and I would place myself somewhere in the middle. When I was younger I loved drawing and obviously no one is born a Picasso but that was one area that I never gave up on, no matter what. If a painting or sketch didn't turn out the way I had meant I would start over but I wouldn't get rid of the other sketch because from that I was able to take what I did like and what I wanted change.  In that area of my life I was definitely in the growth mindset, learning from my mistakes and always looking to improve. 

This is a no camera zone !

If I was to describe my comfort zone I would describe it as “little” and “not much” because there are not many things that I am comfortable doing. I mean that is a little bit of an exaggeration but one thing I am truly on uncomfortable with is anything that requires me and a camera. Unfortunately for me my mother has an obsession with photos and that obsession has led my face to be plastered all over my house. Every time I walk around my own home my fears of cameras are reassured by the scared and unprepared face that stares back at me from the photos.

This week for my online communication class we had to create a video of ourselves, acting like a news anchor. This project terrified me, if I could not surpass my fears of cameras for a standstill how was I suppose to make an entire video with  a length requirement of six minutes of just myself.  Well I filmed it earlier on today, and like I predicted I looked like a deer caught in the headlights. I was awkward, most of the time I was starring off into space away from the camera, and to make things worse I sound like I have some type of speech impairment, to add on to this my accent makes certain words sound almost unrecognizable but I refuse to re-film it. This experience has pushed me out of my comfort zone and honestly I don’t like it, some people are better suited for these kinds of things, like people who are photogenic. I am not one of those people and I don’t want to keep trying because it will probably make me even more self-conscious. In conclusion I would much rather stay within my comfort zone and  just manage with what I got but I guess as the saying goes nothing ventured nothing gained, so I might try again tomorrow. 

Campus Safari # 7 Fitness Center

This week I walked into the fitness center to look around see what they had to offer. I found that they had all the equipment that a regular gym has bikes, treadmills, elliptical, and various weight training machines. They basically have a machine to work out every part of your body. Their hours of operations are Monday through Thursday from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm, Friday from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm, Saturday from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, and Sunday 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm. The gym also closes if the school does, so it closes for holidays and emergency closings.  For the fall semester it would cost a student $60 dollars to join and $120 for the fall and spring semester, which is a lot cheaper than many other gyms out there. One class I would be interested in taking is the cycling class. This class takes place on Mondays from 12:12 pm to 12:45 pm. Overall I really like this gym it has everything you need to get healthy including if you want personal training and it is not too pricey. 

I Can, I Will, I Guess I Can't

The book were currently reading, Mindset, has turned out to be surprisingly interesting. Carol Dweck believes that people can have two different types of mindset, the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. The growth mindset is when you believe in improvement and the fixed mindset is when you believe that you can’t improve. The reason I find this book interesting is because it makes me really think of where I am at the moment and in what kind of mindset I am in. It makes you question the choices you've made and how it has affected your success.  I realize that I am one of the many that are in the fixed mindset area. This book has made me acknowledge that a lot of the time I do give up when the going gets tough and that has led me down a road that I am sometimes not happy with.  When talking about procrastination I said that I used it as an excuse, because I didn't want to put the effort in and fail. In that case if I failed it would mean to me that I am not smart enough or capable of doing the task and those are characteristics of someone with a fixed mindset.

I feel like the main issue that we've been talking about throughout this semester is being all summed up by this book. Agency, the action of growing and becoming, the 10,000 hour article about effort and enthusiasm, motivation and doing things for yourself and doing things for others, it all fits into these two mindsets. In the growth mindset it is all about the effort, the learning, and just trying. Agency fits into this mindset because agency is about growing from a learner to a thinker, from a follower to a leader, from not knowing to knowing and this is exemplified by this mindset because you grow to be it, unlike in the fixed mindset were you expect yourself to “just” be; just be a thinker, just be a leader, just be knowledgeable.  The 10,000 article to me also goes along with the growth mindset because they both believe in improvement through practice and putting in effort, whereas once again in the fixed mindset you are just expected to be that talented or that amazing in your field. Finally Motivation, I think this is very big for mindset because it seems like depending on how you’re motivated, it’s going to shape your mindset. For example if you’re intrinsically motivated you do things for you, so let’s say you aren't good at math and you took a test last week. This week when you receive your test you see that you got a B. An intrinsically motivated person would be happy because they know that they struggle in this subject so for them a B is improvement and improvement is success  and it gives you encouragement to want to strive for that A the next time, which is the growth mindset. But let’s say you’re an extrinsically motivated person then that B, that self-improvement means nothing because you didn't end up getting the A that society would applaud so you would consider it failure and probably continue to not try because you’re not good at math and there is nothing you can do, which is the fixed mindset. 

First Video Project

Video Project

This video project was the hardest most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. I ran into many technological problems. For example the videos I had previously taken of the interviews had no sounds and would not upload into windows moviemaker. I could only play the videos on iTunes and there was no way to get it to export, it was really irritating. So I came up with a couple of solutions the first one was to record just myself using the computer webcam and talk about the answers that the interviewees had given, but the windows movie maker doesn’t allow you to do it directly from the built in camera it had to be a separate camera, which I didn’t have.  So I kept trying over the weekend but to no avail. On Saturday I gave up and left it for Monday so I could finish it all up on the Mac computers since the iMovie program was said to be easier to use. Well at the Mac lab I received a lot of help from the help desk and was able to upload the movies unto iMovie with no problem and the sound worked. But those technicalities weren’t the only things that made this project difficult, iMovie itself was hard. None of the buttons had a description of what they actually did so I had to guess and check. The movie itself I though was good, for a first time movie. I am happy with the quality of the video though I know it could have been better. I added music/sound effects but I found them to be annoying. I don’t know if you guys would agree but I would love to know for future references. The video also goes very fast but I couldn’t get the clips to run longer then 5 seconds each  but other than that I thought I did a good job. 

Campus Safari #6 Radio Station

For this week’s Campus Safari I decided to research our school’s very own Radio Station. The stations name is WSIN Radio on 1590 AM. Besides the basic information of the radio station the website gave no other information. The websites latest post was published in June and it was about signing up for open positions on the radio station. The other “tabs” or links on the webpage hadn't been updated or no information had been uploaded. I thought that that was very unprofessional, we've been in school for about a month and yet their calendar for September was completely empty, there were was no schedule indicating when the next broadcast was going to be on, or even what shows the station had. So I started scrolling down looking through older posts and I found one with old information about the broadcast but I figured that would be better than nothing. The schedule went like this, on Mondays is “Full Frontal Radio” from 6:15 to 7:00, on Tuesdays is “WTF Are You Listening To?” from 6:15 to 7:15, on Wednesdays is “Radio Stevie” from 6:15, and finally Thursdays is “Mixdown Mixup” from 11:30 to 1:30. I tried to tune on Tuesday to “WTF Are You Listening To?”  but I wasn't successful. I think that the radio station really needs to update and keep their webpage updated so that people who are interested in listing to their station can easily access the information they need to tune into the show that they want to. 

WSIN Radio Link

I Am Out of Time Once Again !

This video project we have going on is supposed to be a sort of “test” to see how well we can manage our time and get it done by our due date. Right now I would say that I am totally failing the test. Unfortunately I have only interview a total of four people and no staff yet.  I’ve also run into a little problem because I have no idea how to use iMovie or any other video making programs and I am basically working every day until Monday so I can’t seem to schedule in enough time to get the movie making part of it in process.

Now this is basically what my week has been like, Monday I got the reminder that this project was due next week and I picked a topic, wrote out the outline of how I wanted the video structure, as well as came up with about ten questions about my topic. On Tuesday I conducted the four interviews I have done, and then went to work, and today I did nothing to advance my project.  So today I fell back into my usual habit of procrastination.

So I guess you’re all asking yourselves what I am going to do about this. Well, I have developed a very strict schedule for myself seeing as I have no time. Tomorrow without fail I have to conduct the last interviews I need and since I work at three that’s probably as much as I am going to be able to do. Friday I’ve scheduled library time to start putting the video together but again I have work from 1 to 8 so my time is limited. Saturday I work from 9 to 4 so I’ve scheduled library time from 5 until whenever I finish, and it MUST be done by Saturday.

So I guess I failed at managing my time better, but old habits die hard and I just have to keep at it until it becomes a habit to obey my schedule. Nothing great is ever achieved in a day so I just have to give myself time to change my habits and then I’ll truly be able to produce greatness.

So That's Where All My Time Goes !

After recording my day’s activity for about a week, I realized that I waste so much of my time doing useless senseless things. I am always complaining that between work, school, and homework I have absolutely no time for myself but this study proved my theory wrong.

So my schedule is basically set in stone. I know what periods of time I have free to do things on; my problem is actually doing what I’m supposed to be doing at the appropriate times I have designated for them. I know from experience that doing my “Campus Safari” blogs are the most difficult for me to do simply because it’s due on Saturday when I have already tried to forget anything school related. Even though I have all of Friday morning free, I still don’t do anything in that time period when I could be getting all of the work I have to do throughout the weekend done there and then. Then I also noticed that I have like maybe not a whole lot of time but in between work and school I have little two hour break where I could also be doing some of my homework but instead I lay down, relax and watch T.V. I leave it for when I get out of work at 10 o’clock and I have to stay up late to finish what I have to do and that’s usually when I have the sensation of being overwhelmed and short on time.

What I have taken from this study is that I am not doing such a great job on managing my time. I have enough time to do everything that I have to do and even enough time to do the things that I want to. So I have created a little to do list and I have to finish the doing everything in order. The things that need to get done are the first things on my list and the fun things that I want to do are on the bottom of my list. So if I don’t get my homework done then I can’t enjoy the fun things that I want to do. That way I can occupy my time with the essential things in life. 

Campus Safari #9 The Involvement Fair

While attending the Involvement Fair, I found it surprising that I didn’t really find many clubs that I was truly interested in. In high school I was involved in the Human Relationship Club, which was basically a club that focused on current issues people are facing today and how we can help improve the world. There we volunteered for many types of different events, like the walks to cure cancer, soup kitchens, tutoring sessions in New Haven, visiting elementary schools and teaching the kids about bullying and many other things. At the University, though there are many clubs that do volunteer work, the clubs specialize in certain volunteer work. For example there is a club called the Habitat for Humanity Club and they focus on building homes for people, but that is the only thing they do. I  guess I just want a club where there is always going to be something new to do, a shortage of homes isn’t the only problem in the world and I would like to join a club that encompasses other important issues as well. All in all though the Involvement fair was a success, I feel like I know what our school has to offer and I know which clubs might be a good fit for me. I can’t wait to learn more about each one at their next meetings.  

What an A+ looks Like

Looking through the many blogs of my fellow INQ classmates, there is no doubt that a lot of effort, time and creativity is put into every single post. It is hard to pin point which one is the best or most deserving of an A+ but someone that I believe has done a very good job is Amber Serrano.

Her blogs are really well set up and it just shows that she puts in a lot of effort into every one of them. She also really takes what we learned in class and relates it to her blogs. In her most recent post about how to get the A in college she really synthesized her opinion with what we get out of class to create a really informational post. The best part of her blog is how personal she actually gets to make her post. One of my favorite posts from her was the one about her hardest difficulty in life. She talked about her uncle’s death and though this is something that I probably wouldn’t have been able to write about she was, and I think that that is pretty awesome and it lets you connect to her and her blog a lot more. I also think that she always lives up to the expectations of our blogging assignment, all the elements that are required are there, and I feel that she goes beyond just what is required, in length and in creating her own unique voice for the blog.  Besides her actual Blog her work habits are also good, she posts her blogs before the due dates or on time, so I think that the also earns her an A for her blog.

I chose Amber’s blog as the blog that was most deserving of an A, but don’t be discouraged every blog that I read was equally as good, I just felt that I was pulled into her blog a little more. If we put in that extra time and effort I know that we can all achieve an A on our blogging assignments, so good luck with all your future posts.

What To Do and What Not To Do

Over the past few weeks we have been studying ways to reach success in college. From developing good habits, to coming prepared to class, to doing the “invisible” work, to just simply putting in the effort and time, we all have tricks to come out on top. But sometimes what works for you might not work for me and so we are all on a mission to find what tips really help us and which ones don’t.

            For me I find it helpful to keep an agenda with all my due dates in it, so when I have the extra time I can get ahead. Besides school I also work so sometimes doing homework the night before isn’t an option for me because I just don’t have the time. Making a schedule with designated times for everything helps me manage my time, and now that I have been following it for a few weeks it has become something like a habit so I know when I need to do things. Another trick I use is my parents. Since I am a commuter I am still living at home and my parents can still nag me, but having them nagging me gives me the initiative to not procrastinate. I guess right now they are like my crutch while I develop the good habits that I need to have in order to be successful.

            The things that don’t work for me, mainly is dedicating time to doing assignments. Since I am currently working about 36 hours a week I have to shorten the periods of time I use for homework. Now time has nothing to do with effort, I spend less time on an assignment but put twice the effort in the time that I do have. There are a lot of techniques concerning time, the article by Malcom Gladwell suggest that if you want to become an expert in an area you have to dedicate your practice about 10,000 hours. I don’t have that kind of time so I have to figure out a way to substitute time with effort in order to get the same results.   

Campus Safari #18 New Student Convocation

This week I attended the new student Convocation. Though it was short in length I thought it was very important for us to attend to know what the university expects from us as students. There was a section where the student council went around making promises or pledges to the university, mostly about being a good member of the community, being friendly to one another, and I thought that was one of the most important things to get out of it. We all want a good experience here and if everyone is just nice and open to other people then we will. Another highlight of the Convocation was the when the President of Southern Connecticut State University, Mary A. Papazian gave her speech. She as well as us is new to Southern and basically her speech was just about how we will continue to grow as a university and continue to change things in a positive way. She also talked about how the campus is not the only things being remodeled but the reputation of Southern is also changing in a positive way and we all have to contribute to making these changes last.

There Is More To Life Than Practice Or Is There ?

One of the most interesting articles we read about this week is the Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule article. In this article he stated that to master a craft you have to put in 10,000 hours of practice in that subject area. He believes that talent, genetics, and luck have little to do with our success in our craft. In class we could not agree on whether this was true or not. Innate talent was one of the main points to oppose Gladwell’s theory. The problem with this theory is that mostly no one will train for 10,000 hours on something that they are not good at, so it can’t be proven. If you take Bill Gates for example, he dropped out of college because that was not what he was good at. He went to work with computers which is something that he is good at and I believe that the very notion of him knowing that he was just “naturally” good with computers proves the innate talent theory over the 10,000 hours theory.

Personally I do not agree with the 10,000 hours theory. To me you need to have the talent first and then practice at what you are good at to become a master. One classmate brought up singing as a subject where you needed to have the talent and it wasn’t just about the time you put in to become better. I do not possess a singing voice. My voice is somewhat deep and nasal and I feel that no matter how much I practice I could never be a great singer.  I think it’s a lot like playing to your strengths, I mean I could work on being a professional football player for 10,000 hours and I would probably never make it to the NFL, simply because I am 4’3, and I could never weigh 300 or more pounds and still be able to move. I do agree that you need to practice to become better, to become at master in your field, but it definitely takes a lot more than just you putting time in. Another example from our class discussion is a basketball player. To be a basketball player you have to have the height and if you end up being 4’2 like me there is no amount of practice that is going to help you. Unfortunately I do not think that anything is possible for everyone but who knows I’ve never put that much time into something that I wasn’t good at.  

Moving Forward

One of the hardest things I ever did was leaving my family when I came to the United States. Although I was young and I wanted to be reunited with dad, I was sure to miss the family that had taken such a big part in raising me up until that point. I was coming to a place where I had no grandparents, no aunts and uncles, no cousins, and no friends. Uprooting my life was a big change and I am sure that most of us know that change is inevitable and a part of life but knowing that doesn’t make the change any easier. My transition was definitely rough. At the beginning I had a tough time making friends partly due to the language barrier and partly due to the fact that I didn’t want to let go of my old friends, family, and life. I overcame this difficulty by taking one step at a time sort of plan that my mother devised. I was calling my family in Argentina about every day. A month later my mom cut my calls to six calls a week and every month that passed she cut one call. This forced me to open up to the people that were now close to me. Soon I realized that I still had my family with me, I had my dad, my mom, and my brother and plenty of knew people to befriend. We still keep in touch not nearly as much, everyone just decide to live the life they are leading and now I know that in life you just always keep meeting new people but you can always stay in touch with the people you’ve  met in your past.

This difficulty relates to the difficulties I’ve experienced so far in college, because college is very much like uprooting your life. It’s different from what we were used to in high school and you and your friends are going separate ways and we all need to learn how to move forward. Some of us have left our parents and after living eighteen years with them, learning how to live without them is very tricky. Through time and baby steps, we don’t forget them; we just learn how to need them less. 

Campus Safari: I Finally Get to Know You

I made an appointment with my math 102 professor and I found it to be very useful in getting to know him and his expectations as well as a way for him to get to know me. My math professor is Druker and he can be reached at (203) 392-5594. When I made the appointment with him i had plans to ask him what the curriculum was going to be like, the difficulty level, and what I can expect from his class such as workload his grading policy and so on. Somehow we got sidetracked and he started to tell me how he had come from Russia and how he had waited so long to come here. I learned that we share a lot of the same values, such as valuing education, and that we should try to do what we love. Apart from that being in his class I learned that he is very funny and always eager to help. He actually goes around the classroom asking everyone if they are okay with the material. Besides his really thick Russia accent i doubt I'll have any difficulties in his class and that is why his class is one of my favorite class this semester.

What's Up With Blogging

Over the past few days I have been looking at many other blogs and I have to say that most of them are pretty amazing, informative, and just have a lot of things going on. I mostly looked at fashion and beauty blogs. Because of the subject they always had a lot of pictures and video’s posted along with a little summary of whatever it was they were posting about. I also found that the blogger always gave a little bit of inside on themselves as well. So if they did a review on a certain product they would discuss how they felt about it and more importantly they open the floor for discussions, asking their viewers to comment on their blog to see if they had the same or a different experience. I also found that when a blogger customized their blog and added pictures of themselves, or in general any pictures at all, it made the blog more interesting. The titles of the blogs were usually what caught my attention and geared me to read them, so now I know that if I don’t want anyone to read my blogs I should add a boring title. Some of the things that I did not like about some of the blogs that I saw were that they wrote in a way that was very text like or unprofessional. Some of the blogs also went on a little too long without enough information about the topic, it was just mostly ranting.

For my blog I want to make it very pleasing to look at. I found that for me pictures and videos just drew me in as well as catchy titles, so maybe in the future I can become a little more creative. I also liked how the blogs where easy and fun to read but still very grammatically correct and just well planned out. So it doesn’t feel like your reading a boring five page essay but you are not reading a cryptic message on a piece of ripped out paper. These bloggers make it feel like they are just talking to you, their personality and views just come out of their blogs and that is something that I wish to achieve with my blog. As far as goals for my blog, I guess I’ll go with having at least two comments every month, so that I can at least think that what I’ am blogging about it interesting. 

So here are two links to blogs that I found interesting 

http://lefashionimage.blogspot.com/

http://www.tanyaburr.co.uk/