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.