Writing Center Help

Last week I was able to go to the writing center to have some help with an essay for my English class. It was a great way to help students with their work or have someone look over your work and give you some advice on how you can make it better. It was a great way to have a one on one conversation who can help you with your work when you are stuck on something. Students come a lot for this help; they even have students who come every time they have a paper just to have that extra advice. The writing center is located in the Engleman Hall in room A-014. For any student interested please make an appointment in advance. 

 

Studying Isn't Easy!

Next week is going to be an interesting week for me. We are assigned a movie project where we have to interview 2 teachers, 2 upperclassmen, and 3 freshman about any subject that any freshman in college would want to know. I decided to do questions about study habits because many freshman are still trying to look for ways to help them study better or what is easier for them personally, by taking different study habits it well help everyone try new ways to study and what is or isn't effective for them. Some of the questions that i will be asking are; what helps you to study? where do you study? what to you use to study? how long do you study for? what makes it easier in your case to do when you study?. Questions like this are going to give me many different answers which is what i am looking for, so for those who see this will have many different options or examples in which they can use to study. Since these questions will hopefully give me different answers it will be easier to make an interesting video because its not going to be all the same but a variety of different answers. I am really hoping this video will help not only freshman but students who yet have not found a study habit that has helped them. 

Time Management for Each Day

This week i've really realized how i spend my time each day and how long i spend. This study really taught me that i need to divide my time a little better because i found myself studying past 12 when i should have been sleeping. It ties into time management and how we spend each day and what we need to improve on. Sunday's is my time to spend with my family so i don't do any work and i work from 5-1130 so rite when i get home i get some sleep. Monday-Thursday my schedule is more fixed because its a daily routine. I wake up have class either from 10-12 or 8-3. On mondays,wednesday, and fridays i go to class then the library for 1-3 hours to get my work done and study. On tuesday and thursday i have class 8-945 then i go to the library until my next class which is from 150-3pm. I go home take a nap from 4- about 6. I go to the gym from 6:30-8, get home study until 10:30 then go straight to bed. I get everything done during school days so on the weekend i have nothing to do but maybe go over my notes for an hour. Studying takes up most of time because im either at the library where i am most of my time is in my room looking over my notes. I procrastinate a little too much on the weekends because i always leave everything for sunday and when it come to sunday i just wana relax before work so the last thing on my mind is homework/studying. By fixing this problem i am going to take time at least 30 min on friday and saturday so i wont have much to do sunday so i wont get too lazy to do it. The way i split up my time really works for me because i still do work but not everyday is as smooth as the others because some days have more to study or more homework. Overall my time spent each day is working with my schedule each day.

School Clubinn

My mom has been bugging me to join clubs since i started college. Luckily on wednesday was the involment fair which i was able to get some information and be able to learn a bit of each organization or club that i might be inetersted in. They had music playing and food for everyone.

 Ive been dancing for 11 years and i really didn't want to stop dancing so i really wanted to look for a club also known as the dance team. I went to the stand that said "Symphonic Pulse Dance Company". They dance all kinds of dancing like ballet, tap, jazz, hiphop and even dances from other countries like africa. They meet 2 times a week Tuesday and Wednesday at 1pm. They dance at many school events like the inaguration of our new president and events similar to that. I also joined Best Buddies who work with people with disabilities. You meet every wednesday at chapel new haven 7-9. Its a great way to make someone smile and have a great time with all your new friends. You play games, watch movies, out to eat and a lot of great activities.

Read Between the Lines.

Looking thru many o the blogs there were two blogs that really stood up to me by the way they wrote and really had alot of peronality in them and i thought to be an A blog. "What you make of it" was one blog that did a great job. She really put alot of hr personality in her blogs and made it seem like she was talking to us and not just at the computer. She used the word "I" a lot which made it about herself and got herself involved alot instead of being a runon and making it seem like just a normal writing assignment. For her first blog she talked about what college really meant to her and she asked herself questions like  What if I never end up finding my place in the world? What if I never find a major that fits me? This made all of us really thinking about this and find an answer for ourselves.

 When you first go on the blog College:Revealed the first thing that pops up at you is the title, already the title is interesting because it has alot to say and what her thoughts are about college. The way she structured each blog in a different way catches your attention because there is variety and you know each blog is different and wont be like all the others. This blogger really put her own style in the way she writes it and the way she wants it to be read with all the punctuation marks and different wording. In her most recent blog she states by saying "Now i could talk about the obvious matter of time management, which goes hand in hand with this, but rather i want to talk about work itself. I cant stress its importance!!!!!" with just this line really captures not only her personality but the way she wants it to be read. 

What can i do to perfect?

Ive been in school for 3 weeks now and i've had 3 papers, 5 quizzes, and 1 test already. Ive had to split up my time in 3 different sections including; classes, studying/homework and work. When studying or even doing work i highlight the important information that i would think is going to be on a quiz or test or simply something i should know. Many teachers recommend to stick post its in a book that yo may be reading so you can go back to it and refer examples or just to refresh your memory on what you read. Ive found this very helpful because you don't have to go back to much to find that information.
Ive never had many different studying habits, its been the same throughout my high school now college years. Ive tended to highlight a lot of my notes because i've found that to be very helpful whenever i study. Time management has changed a lot because in high school i didn't try as much as i do here. I find myself studying for hours when i can. I stay in the library most of the time because i need a quiet place to study and do my work. When i write too detailed i tend to skip over it because fits to much to memorize which is not useful. I cut down my notes a little so i can study the main parts of a sentence or phrase. 

Being a college student can be a bit easier as we all think if we divide our time right and dedicate ourselves to studying and doing everything properly. Ive taken a lot of notes in my classes so i can review them each day so when the time comes to have my test or quiz i know most of it so i wont have to take hours to study. Most important overall is to try my best in everything we do and learn as much as i can. 

Welcome New Students!

Wednesday, September 12, was the new student induction ceremony at the John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts. The auditorium was filled with new faces and the new students of SCSU. There was the lighting of the torch each representing a goal for our new students. The faculty spoke and introduced to us our class representatives who lit the candles.

 The President here of SCSU spoke to all of us and introduced the new and upcoming projects that are starting in February like the new parking garage and a new business hall. This ceremony was full of excitement and enxiety to start the new year with all of these new projects. The ceremony ended with an inspiring song named "Alma Mater" when all the faculty and students went off the stage. It was a great introduction to the new year. 

One Minute to Zero

College is a whole new transition for all the new freshman and the problem that i have and many of us might have is how to organize school, work and sports. Time management plays a huge part because you need to split up each day by hours to fit in these things that you have to do each day. Minutes turn into hours next thing you know its 10 at night and you have nothing done. Homework itself takes about 3 hours plus studying. You have to go to practice by three when your class ends at 2:10 then you work 5-10. When do you have time do your homework? that's when time management comes into play you split up each hour or however you want to divide your time to do all these things in one day. While reading the blog "How to Become a Deep Thinker at College" they mention 3 simple steps: 1.choose a mixture of courses that all seem interesting to you 2. Calculate the number of hours per week you will need 3. Double this total. By calculating each hour of your day it will give you a perspective of how much time you will need to do homework/study, practice and work. The blog "Work Hard or Work Smart" he says "take an evaluation of your situation, where are you in relation to your goals, and what would it take to hit those" We all have goals in life and we are all here at SCSU because we all have the goal to graduate with a degree. It can be easy if he have our time organized to have time for each thing. We are all young and we can do this and finish this with a BANG.

Life isn't easy but it gets us stronger

Life has a lot of unexpected turns that can result in changing your life and the way you think. My grandfather passed away back in 2001 and i didn't really understand his death my parents just told me he was very sick and they would tell me when i was a little older. At 12 years old they told me that he had cancer and they detected it when he was already in the 3rd trimester. He always looked very healthy and went to the gym never knowing that he only had a couple weeks left. He was a very happy man always going out with his nieces and nephews and doing what he could to see us. No one saw it coming and even tho he knew he was dying he would never show he was upset. I knew deep inside he was. He always talked about doing better than he ever did to my mo and going to school and having a degree.Education was always very important to him. Now that i am older i always have him in the back of my mind when it has to do with school. Knowing that my grandpa is looking at me i want to make him proud and make sure i graduate and put school first and do all i can to succeed in school.  Doing the best i can is what helped me overcome this tragedy knowing that he's above looking after me and helping me to my best. I learned that any day can be your last day and you want to do good things each and everyday and set an example so you can e a role model for other people especially your family. I know college is going to be difficult with all the classes but anyone can do it if they truly want to do their best and i put my education above anything.

Meeting Professor Paul Sorensen(:

Today after professor Paul's class i stayed after his class t talk a little about his course for this upcoming year. This is his first semester here at SCSU as a teacher so he as well as all of the new freshman are just getting used to it here at a new school. Paul teaches english 110 with a class of 12 students. This class introduces students to think about reading and writing skills. It is a class that teaches the basics of argument and writing strategies that will teach you to become a better writer and reader. It makes sure students can observe the connections of reading and writing. The professor states that his course is all about most important critical reading and writing. He wants his class to really understand the concepts of reading and writing to write a well done paper. he plans on going about this by reading many books like the current book "They say, I say" and many more. Group work will also play a part in this so all the students  can talk to one another and help each other learn new strategies. His office is located at B231B cubicle 7 monday's and wednesday's 12:15-1:45 in the Engleman Hall.

Email:sorensonp1@southern.edu

Blogging is harder than i thought!

So i got on the computer and looked up the New York Times Blog and the first thing i noticed was they had blogs for every subject that you can think of like business, finance and technology and even sports. It was all infront of you and easy to find so you knew exactly what you wanted to read. I clicked on sports and saw a hockey blog named "Slap Shot". It seemed as i was just reading a short article, it had no personality and was very plain and boring somthing you would read in a newspaper. I did like how there was a video that you were able to watch and have a visual and it was pretty short and right to the point. Time magazine was a bit different in the sense that there wasnt as many options as the New Yrok Times had here were 4 blogs with only 4 stories in each topic. I looked at the entertainment and a short clip popped up and under it was a little 3 paragraph story or blog. I did have some personality but also bias as some people might comment as being wrong, He comments by saying "Today, honestly, im just not entirely sure what exactly to expect from an Eddie Murphy hosted award show". NPR was like the others more like a short article that didnt really catch the readers attention but did give you some information. I looked up celebrity gossip blog and it was vert different from the regular news blogs. There were many blogs with titles that just caught your eye and pictures that made you check it out and read. Of course the blogs were mostly comments that the author said and had a lot of personality behind it. They were not emberassed to say what they had in mind and wrote what they felt which appeals to people but not to the people they wrote about. The three blogs Tagans Kitchen, Productive Flourishing and Rebecca''s Pocket really made their blogs seem as they were talking to you and telling you a story. They stuck to one topic and really put as much detail as they could. They organized their blogs nicely with some pictures in between to give a visual. The way they put their blog together and somehow put their personality in their writing was put in there very well. I learned how to better understand the topic and how to make everything really flow to get your readers attention. I need to better understand how to put my blog together and really put my personality out there so not only i have a better time writing it but my readers will enjoy reading it. Never thought blogging would take so much time to put together!

Setting the Tone for This Semester

College is just another step to a brighter future to further your education which is seen as a bigger step to a sucesful life with a good job that pays you well.  Going to college not only lands you a better job in most cases but also educates you more because your learning more in depth the studies that you are going for. Colege opens up a whole new world and career that you most likely will stay for the rest of your life. You get to experience careers that will interest you and define you for the rest of your life. Being a college student academically put more pressure on you than high school did in each one of your classes because grades is what gets you a job or even a program that you want. My major is nursing and i know i have to do good academically to even be considered in the nursing program. I have met alot of people being in college that are completly different than me in each class but teach me new things tht will help me in the future. You open up to people very easily here in college because we are all here for the same reason which is to graduate and get the job that we want.  Personally college made me really grow up because once we step into class it all has to do on us and our independence brings more responsibility. In orientation they took back all the nursing students and right whn we got in the room they said this is a competetive program, most of our sudents last year that got in had atleast a 3.6. Already i was nervous and knew i had to change my way of studying and really focussing on school and being more responsible. I want to be able to be positive that i am going to be in the nursing program and be garenteed a spot because of my gap. Once i get into the program i want to graduate and fulfill my dream of being a nurse. My number one goal is just to try my hardest in every class. Freshman year is very important and i want to start it right. I am very excited for the upcoming years here at SCSU!