Final Blog!!

            When sitting for the first time trying to think of how I may start this blog, my hardest struggle was trying to make it personal. The funny part is, that’s the thing I thought I excelled at all semester long. It’s weird how it works, how sometimes your biggest advantage because your biggest challenge. You see, I had many things to say, but they were all those cliché comments, tips, and ideas that people already know about college. The thing is, all those things ARE what every kid should know when starting college. Those tips and tricks are all 100% accurate, and it takes the actual first semester experience to realize that.

            There are also many set ideas about how the college freshman experience is, but the truth is, it could differ for every single person. I am very happy with how my first semester has gone. I’ve learned many of the basic important lessons and underwent many new experiences. College forces you to focus on yourself. What I mean by this is, when you’re put out and given responsibilities, it forces a person to rely on themselves, grow a stronger sense of responsibility, and learn how to handle difficult situations. I don’t think that you can ever stop learning. I believe there are different lessons that are taught at all stages of a person’s life so there is no way to really place where you stand as a person.

            Challenges will be found all over for a freshman student, and i've faced many of them. You have to figure out how to pick classes, how to find your way in buildings, and face assignments you'd never think imaginable. Sometimes the best way to overcome challenges is to set goals for yourself, and to follow through to meet those. This means if you find the large load of course work challenging, try to set a goal of not missing any assignments. This way you will be more motivated to complete the work, and handle all that is being thrown at you. I found my largest challenge to be my terrible habit of procrastination. As easy as it is to overcome this problem, I still seem to struggle with it today. Initially, I thought that I would be able to handle the situation the same way that I did in high school. I would do things last minute, or hand things in “only” a day late. (I may or may not be doing my last minute editing the day it’s due). I soon found, that my high school habits were not going to cut it.

            I managed to find many ways to help suppress the procrastination, including a planner, placing calendar’s in multiple places, and also to set reminders on my phone. I found all of these solutions to be very effective, so much so, that I decided to do my third video project on the topic of procrastination just to share. In all honesty, I can’t say I have stopped, but there is no doubt that I haven’t greatly improve. I hope to keep improving during the next semester. I am 100% happy with what I have done, but I was raised to think that there is always room for improvement, and I will be sure to continue with that thought in mind.

There is never any place to go but forward, I hope to continue my immediate success in college for the remainder of my four years here at Southern.

           

        Overall, it is safe to say I have had a very successful first semester of college. I couldn’t be happier with the people I’ve met, and the work I’ve put in. Between managing my workload, striving for various goals set, or just spur of the moment campus activities I have had so much fun, (even in times of stress). Take advantage of your time, and use Southern’s various recourses to help you out. It's been a great semester, I can't wait to see what my future here at SCSU holds!

            

Read, read, read!

For this weeks safari I decided to go to the library. In the beginning of the year, my anthropology teacher talked about a book by Charles Darwin called "The Origin Of Species". It seemed interesting because I have always been curious about the topic. My older brother is an evolution major, so he has read the book and said nothing but great things. The book is about Charles Darwin's theory on the evolution of species to create the modern day homo sapiens (human!). It seems to be a good read, that anyone will enjoy.  I skimmed through the book briefly. If you are interested in reading about evolution, or debates (It's a frequently debated topic), I would definitely look into it. I feel like a lot of people would find it neat. This book connects to my classes because it's exactly what, and who, we were talking about! I may have to annoy my brother to get some info out of him if I don't have enough time to read it.

SUCCESS!

I have had many great successes this semester. Some may be more important than others, but I feel that I have made myself the college student that I would want to be. I have changed a lot this year as a person. I think my greatest success is kind of an indirect one. I am so proud of myself for being able to upkeep the workload as well as my job, and social life. I’ll be honest it was really hard to do this. 

Overall, it took some time to get used to. My boyfriend definitely was not happy at first because I was kind of missing all the time. I think every student needs to find their balance in life, a schedule that works for them. As far as failures go, I guess I failed when it came to trying my hardest on all assignments. I did skip one every now and then before I was able to manage all the tasks in my life. I would also work so much that I was overtired, and would sleep very late in the morning, either missing or coming late to class. Sleep was probably the most valuable thing I lost since starting in school.

 When you have more chores to handle, it means less time for everything else. I really think I will take so much from this first semester. I knew that college is a new experience when it comes to work, friends, and environment, but nobody ever tells you how much you really learn about yourself too. I’m proud of the maturity and responsibility I have gained since becoming a student at Southern. If I could give any advice to new students it would be to not stress the little things, and take it all a day at a time. It will all be resolved before you know it.

Final Project

So far I have been making a lot of progress in my final project. I chose to do the essay.  I hope to be able to convey a good story that shows the experiences I went through during my first semester of college, here at Southern.

 I think that it was the choice that would be easier for me to do, and get a better grade on. I think that I have been making a lot of progress with organizing my ideas. That is the hardest part because there are so many topics that we need to cover.  I really want to make the essay flow well, and the best way to do so is just take some time with it. I want to talk about some personal experiences that I have.

 I am trying to think really hard about each guideline question I really want to keep my own personal speech type in the writing, to make it an individual essay. I think the best way to make something distinctive is to keep it in your own style of writing. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how my final project is going so far. I think that there will always be a little editing that can be done. I hope to get a good final grade on this paper, because it is really important.