Final Assignment

Throughout this semester I, individually feel that I met most of the course goals. It was difficult to transform from being a high school student to being on my own in college. I was a difficult task but I feel that this class helped me a lot. As I entered college I was trying to get school work done, working 30 hours a week and also trying to have a social life. I didn’t think that this would be possible to do all at once but this class was able to show me that I could. Having time management is a big part of college. You have to be able to manage a lot on your plate and get it all done on time and with good quality. I also learned that in between school, work and a social life you have to put in time to sleep and eat. At the start of college sleeping and eating began to lack because I was feeling overwhelmed and felt I didn’t have time to do everything in a day. But I learned how to manage my time. I cut back my work schedule and started studying more for classes.

My biggest goal of this semester was to meet a lot of new people and get a GPA of at least 3.0. I know for a fact that one of my goals was definitely accomplished. I met a lot of knew friends. I though that it would be good to try knew things so I rushed a sorority. All the girls were very nice but in the end I found that it wasn’t for me so I quit. Yes I enjoyed it very much, but it took up most of my time. I found that it was harder to work and I found myself slacking on my work. My other goal I am hoping was accomplished. I will find out when all my final grades come out. I feel that I worked hard this semester and my grades should reflect it. 

On the first day of inquiry class I sat down and at first I was a little overwhelmed. I thought that class was just a class to help us with our other classes, but it wasn’t what I thought. This class was a whole other class with addition work. The teacher explained that the rubric for the class was on the computer, so the first thing when I got home was I went on the computer to read it. As I opened it up I got even more overwhelmed. It was so many pages. As I read the syllabus, I began to read the requirements. It started with blogs, then it went to campus safari’s, and it went on. The main part of this course was blogs. I didn’t really enjoy them that much but it was my grade so I had to do it. I feel that I accomplished it mainly. Yeah I missed a couple blogs here and there but I feel that the ones that I completed were writing well and completed the requirement. For each blog I always had at least one picture and sometimes two. They were always over the 250 word requirement and it had my own style. Campus safari on the other hand I felt I accomplished very well. Out of 16 I missed two, which I feel is ok. It was hard for me to get to performances because I liked off campus and I worked a lot. So I feel that I met the requirements for those. Sometimes I felt as if they were difficult to do one for every Thursday because once again I lived off campus and after class I had to leave campus.

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses when they do something. I feel that throughout this semester my biggest weakness was procrastination. I always kept most of the assignments until last moment. Yes I worked my hardest on them but sometimes I pulled all nighters to get them done. This is something that for next semester I don’t want to be doing. Procrastination is a bad thing and should have never been invented. I know that because I experienced it during my first semester I know that things have to change for future semesters. I would have to say that my biggest strength would probably be organization. I found that coming from high school I knew I had to change my ways. I was always messy and my papers were all over. As I entered college I made sure I had a binder, folders, and a planner to keep me on top of things. This kept me very organized with all my classes and helped me be a very successful student.  Something else I found that was a struggle was time management. This course was based on helping us with different skills and multitasking. I found that by the end of the semester I accomplished the goal.

Do you know your strenght and weaknesses?

Weaknesses? Strengths?... Well i would have to say my biggest weakness would have to have been procrastination. This semester i was the student who put everything to the night before. It wasnt the best thing to try and do my best the night before but it happened. I know that for this semester my biggest thing is going to be getting all the assignments out of the way. The sooner the better.
Another big weakness of mine would have  had to have been time management. Between work and schoola dn haveing a social life i didnt make enough time for everything. I pushed more on work and having a social life then i did for school. This i know has to change because school is most important. Coming from highschool, it was a big adjustment and i dont think that i made it completley. I was always used to people guiding me that it was a big shock being on my own. By the end of the first semester i feel that i accomplished that and i am ready to start the second semester off good.
My greatest success would have to have been getting good grades. Even though i procrastinated, my grades kept up.

When you believe you could achieve

So next semester i realize things have to be different. Personally i realize that i need to learn to make more time on studying and school work , rather then work. This semester i spent a big majority of my time working. By the end of the semester i realized that when i look back on my first semester i really didnt do alot of studying or i put it off till last minute. Even though my grades are good this semester i want them to be even better as the semesters go on. Because of my my class scheldule for next semester i cut my hours down at work a lot. This will allow me to focus more on my education.
My academnic goal for next semester is to strive for a higher GPA. Even though my grades were good this semester, i want to try to do alot better. I know that without my history class dragging my grade down i will do so much better.

Socially my goal is to meet  more people. I feel that yeah coming into college i met a lot of new people in my classes but i think that its not as many as i could make if i joined organizations. My goal is to get more involved in clubs. This semester i went from class to home. Because i dont live on campus its harder for me to stay around. With cutting my work hours down i hope to be able to stay on campus and see what they offer.

Learning Community

What do i think about southerns learning community?....Well i think that having two classes with the same kids really helped. We all get along and work very well together. I feel that the learning community made us learn more about each other, then we would have if we only saw each other once every other day. On top of the learning communities we were put in, our INQ class had little "groups" we were put in. I feel that these groups were helpful because it was only 3 or 4 of us and we could get things done. Yes sometimes it was hard to meet with everyone, but in the end it was helpful because you always had someone to give you advice. My first group was alittle more difficult to deal with because i am a commuter and everyone else lived on campus. On top of this i didnt have my liscence and they all played sports. The times they all wanted to meet was alittle difficult because it was always at like 10 or 11. But other then this i felt that the learning communities are a good idea. When you have the same people in more then one class, i feel that it helps alittle more getting adjusted to college because you have other people there to help you. One thing that i thought was a big benefit fromt eh learning community was during the time of the midterm and final projects. I feel that without the ideas from my froup, my project would have been very boring.

My Future

After college? Its so hard to imagine whats going to be an ideal life after college seeing as its my first semester as a freshman, But here it goes. Well so far its not going to well. I planned on getting a good GPA, but one of my classes is really hurting it. So first i have to get that up so i could graduate high in my class. By the time i am out of college i am hopefully going to have my own apartment. My dream has always been to live on the beach, so when i get this apartment i want it to be either across from the beach or on the beach. By this time i would like to own a pretty decent car. Preferably either a blue or black car.

I hope that after i graduate, get a job, car and an apartment i would like to have a family. OH yeah i forgot first i have to find a guy. My dream has always been to have twins. But i want identical twin girls. I mean if they end up to be two boys its ok but i really want them to be idential.

My dream job has always been to teacher kindergarten in my old elementary school. I always thought it would be nice to be able to go back and charish the good times.

The Day of Eating!

As we all know one of the best holidays has just passed. Thanksgiving is a day tht people get together with the people they love and be greatful for everything the have. This is the time when people eat ALL day.  I know for me i enjoy this. There are so many different varieties of food to choose from. I never know what to choose. So in the end, i find that i try alittle of everything. My Favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner is the mash potatoes. Unlike alot of people i dont have many foods to choose from. I am allergic to most of them. So my "dessert" for the night was mash potatoes.

So for me thanksgiving is more about spending time with the family.

If we were talking about food on a regular basis, I would have to say I enjoy eating pasta and butter. This is something I could eat for breakfast lunch and dinner. Yeah its bad for you but, it just tastes so good. My family is really Italian so we love to eat pasta. Every Sunday my family has a big family dinner. Our meals consist of 3 to 4 courses. First it’s the salad then the pasta then the veggies and then the main course. After dinner on these days, most of the time when you look around my house everyone is almost sleeping. By this time everyone is full and tired. So in my italian house food is a big part of our life.

Elmos world

So here is the begining of my final movie. It isnt to much but its a start. I would really enjoy if people could give me comments on things to add and or take out.Thanks!

Have you ever been a leader?

What does it mean to be a leader?

Being a leader is a big quality people look for in a person. Never be that follower. Being a leader to me means taking responsibility and being a role model. A leader is someone others should be able to look up to.

Going through school i always liked doing individual projects. I always felt that i didnt have to wait or count on anyone else. Coming to college i found out that many things are done in groups. This was a big change for me. Now i was getting a little nervous. But i realized that if i had control and was able to lead it alittle maybe i would be able to push my group to get it done quickly but neatly.

I stepped up in this projected and took the spot as leader. As a group we came together and figured out what needed to be done adn who was going to do what. I figured by doing this we would accomplish many different things: first everyone would know what they had to do and when it had to be ready. This way not everything was being done at the end. I made sure that everything was done acouple days before so that i could put it together. I feel that by doing this it helped alot in the project. I felt that it worked very well. Even though i didnt like telling people what had to be done, it worked and we got a good grade on the project.

Whats more important?

Everyone goes through a difficult time sometime in their life. Well started college i experienced one of my most difficult situations. I came into college working over 30hours, being a full time student, and wanting a little free time of my own. I went through a month of school struggling to get homework done and it was even harder to study. I was losing sleep, and i started drinking coffee. This was something i didn't want to do. I had to make a big decision. It was either to try to keep up and tire myself out or change something in my routine. Yes, i needed money but in the end what was going to benefit me more in the long run? I was always scared to talk to my boss and tell her that i wanted to cut my hours down. So i struggled for a while to work, go to school and have fun. But it came to a point where i had to say something.

Was my boss happy with me? No not at all. This was the part i was nervous about. I am not the type of person who likes to get yelled at. I explained that i needed to cut my hours down because i was struggling to keep up with school: and she didnt understand that. I guess she doesnt realize that to be a good student and get good grades it take up alot of your time. Well my situation ended with me doing what i htought was right. I started doing better and getting things done. Yes i had to sacrifice losing money here and there, but in the end i had to think what was more important.

Quote

"Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.”
                   
 thinkexist.com

Studying makes a difference

How would you feel if your child stop studying and trying in school? I know that my parents would be very upset. Parents try so hard to make their child sucessful. Schools are making it easier for children to stop studying because they want their school to look good. In my opinion i feel that this is not right to do . Children should be able to feel that they acomplished something on their own, they shouldnt just have it handed to them. By schools doign this, it is going to be harder for kids to adjust as they go to the next level.

Why would everyone want o be the same? When schools use grade inflation, it really isnt letting the kids have individuality. All the children will have aproximatley the same GPA and not one student is going to stand out. I feel that the students grades should reflect on the work that they do. If a child works hard i feel that they deserve a higher grade then somone wh really doesnt try. In the end working hard really doesnt pay off becasue everyones grades would be the same.

Do children benefit from grade inflation? In reality no. Children are not going to learn anything. I know that when i dont study i feel really lost the next day in class. Imagine not studying for mot of the year. I feel that grade inflaion is going to effect the intelligence of peole in school. In the end, there may be less kids attending college. Some may feel overwhelmed as they gt older, because of the fact that their grades were handed to them throught their years of school

Its your life

Everyone has their own way of relieving stress. Some people get violent and then there are some people who keep it to themselves. In y opinion i feel that violence is never the answer to anything. I find that the best way to relieve stress for me is to go to the gym. Many people would ask why?  When i go to the gym its my alone time. I work out at my own pace and i enjoy listening to music. Music is one thing that allows mw to cool down. When ever i get stressed i put music on and it make everything seem like its nothing.

These last couple of weeks have been very stressful between school and family things, so i decided to go to the gym. I pop in my headphones and exclude the world until i am finished. Yeah every now and then i see people that i know but usually i try avoiding them. Some people may say its boring to go to the gym by yourself, but its rather relaxing.

Stress is one thing that could affect alot. It is a big factor in health issues. Alot of people dont realize that getting themselves so stressed out could affect their health. There are ways that stress can be handled but people dont realize. I think that the worst thing to so is keep everything locked up inside. I have tried this many times but it just leads to depression and health problems. If you could avoid stress, do so. Some other ways that people handle stress, is by having a stress ball. Being able to squeeze it reveals all the anger along with the stress.

Everyone has their own comfort zone

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Have you ever did anything out of your confort zone? Well this week in class our assignment was to do something that was out of your comfort zone and blog about it. My biggest fear is the dark. So this week i stepped out of my comfort zone and actually sacrificed going outside late at night. I was told to take my dog outside. Usually i make an excuse and have someone else bring him out. This time i felt that it was my time to face my fear.

Doing this, actually made me realize that its not so bad. I feel that this task actually made me do something that i probably wouldnt have done.

Another thing that was out of my comfort zone was going shopping and getting everything all at once. If you knew how i shopped you would probably say i lived at the store. One day i figured i would ploan it so that everything that we needed we would get in one trip. I didnt like this so much. I realize that going to the store everyday, multiple times a day was something i was used to. It felt very weird to just go once the whole day . Many people would ask me why i go so many times. My answer is usally because my family has so many people in it. Having twelve people live in your house is hard to just go once to the store. In doing this as outside of my comfort zone i learned that i dont like it and will not do it again

Happy or Sad?

So about those midterm grades. When i recieved them the other day i wasnt as happy as i could have been. Yeah i tried my best but i could have done better. One of my classes is really hard and the professor isnt the best. In my opinion he shouldnt be teaching anymore, but thats just what i think. My other classes i havent really recieved that much work so my grade was reflected on 1 test that i took. 

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 For my major my GPA has to be at least a 2.7. This to me is still way to low. i am hoping for at least a 3.0 or better. All my grades i am hoping to bring up at least a letter grade. The only one i am struggling with is my history class. Who likes history? Its definitley not my favorite subject but in college that doesnt matter, you have to do things to graduate. This semester has been very difficult to keep my attention on the class and even understand this class, knowing that i am failing. Not just me is failing this class, but a big majority of this class is failing. Doe that make since? To me it doesnt. I feel that a teacher shouldnt want to make his students fail.

My goal for my final grades is to start studying alot more so that my grades will increase greatly. I have started to start things earlier. For ex. start projects and essays earlier and not procrastinate.

The Journeys of School

Google This week in class we had to read three different articles on different topics. The article that i thought stood out was called "Grade Inflation in America Education." This article basically stated that students are studying less because of the grading system. Some schools changed their grading systems so that their kids grades would look good. I feel that this is not right at all. Students should work hard for their grades. Yes everyone has those days they don't want to study, but by changing the system makes kids feel like they never have to study. When the kids get older and have to go take for ex. their driving test or other ones to get a job, they r going to feel like they don't have to study. I think that this is a terrible method for schools to do. In the end the school may be benefiting from it but the student aren't going to learn anything. 

Another article we had to read was called "students expectations seen as causing grade disputes." This article explained how kids feel that they deserve better grades then they receive. My opinion on this issue is that sometimes i do feel that students do deserve better grades but other times i don't. I know being a student now there are some papers or projects that i work very hard on and sometimes receive a grade lower then i deserve. But sometimes students like to lie and say they worked so hard on something but in reality they only did it the night before. Yes you go to class and participate and read the chapters you are supposed to, and i feel you should get some credit for doing that, but how successful you are in these tasks should determine your grade. Being in class is important, but the effort and time you put into something should pay off in the end.

Blogs, Blogs,Blogs

What makes a good blog post? Thats the question of the week.

Have you ever read a blog that was long and boring?  Some people may open a blog and realize there are way to many word to read. So, how do you know if your blog is to long, to short, or even losing the audiences attention? Well, in class we discussed what aspects make a blog stand out. Some of these include: Creative word choice, good language, sincerity, pictures,and an interesting title. When people use creative words and good language, it makes the reader feel that the person actually put effort into their writing. Sincerity in a blog, really makes it feel that the writer connected to the topic and probably enjoyed writing about it.

How about those pictures? I know my favorite thing to look at in a blog is the pictures. When people have creative pictures it makes you want to know why they used it. For Ex. in one of michelles blog, she starts off an interesting picture. Its a symbol of some sort. When i looked at it i really wanted to read about it because it caught my attention.

I know for me when i see an interesting title it draws my eyes to read the article. For me i know that i dont really like to read, so i try looking for things im interested in. For ex. when i open the newspaper, i look for titles that have action or related to my town, or even people i know.

In class we looked at one of Alexis blog called "petrone in your heart." Her blog was made very personal. She related the words in her blog to her major.  She enjoys singing and music. She used words like melody,  harmony which made her blog  double themed, which makes an interesting piece to read.

This is what i feel makes a good blog.

The thing that influenced me the most

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Do you know what you want to do when you get older? Well i have known since i was younger what major i wanted to go for. Everyone always says that people usually change their mind acouple times before they know their exact major but for me it was different. I want to be a elemenatary and special education teacher. On top of both those majors i have to declare an addition major. I think it might just be math, or maybe english, i dont kno yet.

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So your probably wondering why i chose to become a teacher. Ever since i was little i always grew up around family. My family is quite large. It consists of 8 kids. Having so many kids aund the house, not everyone could be in the same place as once. So i was the one to babysit the younger ones. Whenever i would babysit my sisters always wanted to play teacher. I started to begin to enjoy teaching. I enjoy doing little arts and craft things, and coloring. I want to be able to make a differnece in someone elses life

The thing that really influenced me to want to be a teacher during high school was when i taught in the nursery school. In my high school we had a nursery school were kids from ages 2 1/2 to 5 could come for half day. This class i took all four years and really enjoyed it. To enter ther nursery school you had to take a child dev. class, which taught you the basics to understanding how children think. You also learned how to talk to children. Some people may think this is easy, but when you really learn and see how much you have to avoid, it can be challenging. I started as just a student who went into the nursery just to help when the teacher needed me, i then got to be an intern, which for me was a year course. This was an everyday class where you just took care of children. You were the head teachers assistants. After one year of doing that, i became a student teacher. A student teacher was the highest you could go, you were basically the teacher. Every once and a while the teaher would make us plan acouple days and actually run the class. On the days were out the student teachers were in charge of the children.

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This teacher was the best teacher i had ever had. She enjoyed everyday when the kids came in, and loved every moment they were there. This made me realize that the kids were everything. During my years in this class you really become a family and the kids become like your own. She treated these kids like they were her own. She always there to comfort them when they cried, or were having a bad day. She really got down on their level to see what they liked and what they enjoyed. This made me realize how much i really enjoyed teaching kids. I want to be able to make a differnece in these kids lives, just like she did. She made the experience for the kids fun and enjoyable. This is the most important thing for children because when children have a bad experience in nursery school they have a harder time moving on.

Is technology Good or Bad?

Have you ever had to interview someone who you don’t know before? I feel that interviewing people is the hardest thing to do, especially people I don’t know. For our midterm project we had to pick a topic and form questions. From these questions we had to go and ask professors, students, and a leader of a club, team or organization. For my topic I picked: Technology.

Technology is a big thing in today’s world. You always see people on their phones or on the computer. People have gotten to wrapped up in tech, that they can’t stop. If you ask a student how long they could go without their cell phone, they would problem reply not long. I know for me my cell phone is everything. If I don’t have it I feel lost. Cell phones are the biggest thing in car accidents.Many car accidents sometimes are related to either texting or talking on the phone.People get to distracted. Another big thing is face book. Face book is probably the biggest distraction to many people.I know when i am doing paper or studying the first thing i do is check facebook. People will be on it during classes, or even when they are doing their homework. Tech. is a big thing that leads to procrastination.

So here is what I have so far and if you want give feedback and or more questions that you believe will make me successful in doing this project.

• How much time during the day would you say you spend either texting or talking on the phone?

• Do you feel that texting and the newer tech. like face book, are affecting students grade. And if so why?

• Do you feel that tech. could be an influence in people’s lives?

A Dream Come True


 

Southern Connecticut Website





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Have you ever had one of those days where you just didn’t want to do anything, but you had to. This was one of those days. I was tired and I didn’t want to go to class or work. This was one of my longer days. I had school from 8-1230 and then work from 1-6. By the end I wanted to sleep. I was really debating whether or not to go to the football game. In the end I decided what would a couple more hours be if I already lasted most of the day not sleeping. I got to the game early for the tailgate part. The tailgate at our school is a time where all the students come together for food and music and some even got free tee-shirts. This was the time to socialize and hang out with friends.

Game time was almost here. This game wasn’t just any game; this game was going to be the first time in a long time that the team would be featured on TV. For a D-2 team this is pretty cool because many d-2 teams are never seen on TV. The crowd was rather big for southern, but the other team (American International) you couldn’t say the same for. They had very few people cheering them on. They had to have no more than 90-100 people. In the beginning I feel that the team got off on a bad start, but as the game went on I feel that they warmed up and started playing as if they wanted to win. You then realized that the game really meant something to them.

 I don’t really know a lot about football, but I do know that we won pretty big. The final score was 28-7. This was a big win especially on live TV.

 

Look further then the rainbow

Why do you believe it is good to read other peoples blogs rather then just reading people you know? In my opinion i think that it is very helpful to read other peoples blogs. It gives me a chance to see how others write adn to see other peoples viewpoints on things. This week our assignment was to find two professional blogs that were somewhat different and something we were interested in.

The first blog i found that caught my eye was called "Teachers" by Gwyn von Telinde. This article was interesting to me becasue when i grow up my goal is to become a teacher. This article basically talked about how the writter enjoyed her job as a teacher but was blogging to let people know that there are challenges in being a teacher. Even though you may live somewhere where most students are exceeding in school, theres always a few who struggle. The article also interested me because it showed that not only do kids "dread" going bac to school, but teacher have a hard time adjusting to the time change from summer to school time. This article really made me think of all the exciting and challenging things i am going to be facing in my future.

The second article i found was "Help! im losing my patience" by Diane. This article basically was about a secartary who saw the challenges of being a teacher, but eventually ended up being a teacher. The secretary always saw this teacher step out of her class to take a deep breathe. Eventually she found the curiage to become a teacher but in the end started to feel just like the other teacher had felt. I enjoyed this article because it shows how even though teaching may be stressful, the kids are a joy to teach.

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These articles are really similar in many ways. It shows how teaching has many challenges. I feel that they were different in ways because one decribed more of  how you have to have patience and one was descibing the change from summer to school time. I believe they were good blogs to look at because they show prospectives coming from someone who has delt with the challenges and has experienced them.