16; Final Blog Post

I cannot believe how quickly this first semester of college has gone by! It has been good and bad at times, but I have to be honest and say that I do like college so far for the most part! I have had some successes such as getting good grades and working and doing the best I could, and I think the biggest was making friends because coming into college I was scared I wouldn’t be able to make friends who I could talk to even beyond class. But I have found that the FYE helped me a lot to make friends, and I really enjoyed our class because we all knew each other and spent two classes together so we really have become a great group of students together. I loved being able to get to know people and knowing they were in two of my classes made it better because I looked forward to seeing them. That was probably my favorite part of this semester because it was a great way to welcome us to Southern and our first semester of college!

With successes come challenges, and my biggest challenge in college so far has probably been commuting to school. Commuters have a lot of problems they face such as high gas prices, traffic, weather conditions, parking, being able to socialize on campus and more. The first couple weeks of school I joined the FTO(Future ) with my friend. We only went to a couple of the meetings, but unfortunately never got to do any of the events except for one. I think that commuting had a problem in that because some of the times the meetings or events were at, we either didn’t have classes or didn’t want to take the drive up to school. However, next semester, I think I want to try something such as joining a group again so that way I can be more social with people at Southern and make more friends! Another problem I faced with commuting is the time management. I have to make sure I get to school on time in order to be on time for class, and I also have to make time not only for driving, but for parking and walking to campus (which sometimes takes around 10 minutes depending where I park.) Also traffic is one of the more annoying parts of commuting, especially the times I got out of school which was usually around rush hour traffic time. The first couple weeks of school, I took the highway and went through Hamden to get to my house in Cheshire. However, my friend who also commutes showed me a back road way which takes only 20-25 minutes and there’s usually not a lot of traffic which is great!

Speaking of time management, I have been okay in successfully managing my time and workload with all of my courses. I found that I usually did my homework right when I got home from school on most days, but some days I put it off. I have a lot of time to do my work, but some of the time I chose to do something other than my work and put it off until late. I do have enough time to do everything, considering at the moment I do not have a job or anything that would prevent me from having less time to do stuff, but considering I’m looking for a job and need one soon, I might have to work on time management when I get a job, and be able to make time for work, school and a social life/everything I want to do. It might be a little hard but I think I will just need to try and make a schedule for everything and make sure I’m doing everything I want and need to do.

For next semester, my main goals are to, yes, do better than I did this semester, but not just academically. Of course I will want to study more than I did and work harder on homework or assignments because sometimes this semester I could have spent more time on them. This is everyone’s typical goal but I think it’s good for me because I would love to see my grades go up, especially in math which was my worst subject. I will definitely go for help when needed because sometimes I didn’t ask for it when I should have. I also want to make sure I make friends with people in my new classes, because I did this semester and I think that’s a huge part of the college experience because having people at school makes going to school better!!

Final video -college level work

http://youtu.be/fA7O2Iq8qVg

16I: Interfaith Office

Considering Southern has a wide range of students, and definitely a variety of cultures, Southern offers an Interfaith office, which offers an exploration of spiritual and religious growth for students. You can learn how different faiths work and learn different faith traditions. The Interfaith Office wants to recognize and welcome all the different religions there are on campus. It is located in room 325 of the student center and there is also a mediation room on the second floor of the student center. For more information or questions, you can call (203) 392-5331. Considering Southern is a very diverse school, I believe this resource can be very helpful toward students who are interested.

http://www.southernct.edu/student-life/health/interfaithoffice/SCSU_12_Spring-3509.jpg

16V: Freedom

The definition of freedom is "the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint." People love having freedom and in college you get a lot of freedom. If you are living on campus, you may have more freedom than you do rather than if you commute, because no one is looking after you and you can do whatever you want. College has much more freedom than high school does because you are in control of what you do. No one tells you to go to class every day or to do your homework, it’s all up to you. And also, right after finals week, everyone at Southern is now 'free' for a month without school, and it’s a great thing to look forward to.

http://suitcasestories.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/FREEDOM.jpg

Other words:

Everyone is studying for finals this week and here are two words from my history study guide and that we've talked about in class this semester;

Slave:  someone who is legally owned by another person and is forced to work for that person without pay

Slave Trade: traffic in slaves; especially :  the buying and selling of blacks for profit prior to the American Civil War

15V: Autonomy

Autonomy is defined as "the state of existing or acting separately from others". Before this blog post, I couldn't have came up with a definition if I tried, because I had no idea what the word meant. In relation toward INQ class and college, I think autonomy means that once you're in college, you are basically on your own with things, and separating from people such as your family if you are living on campus. We now need to learn how to be independent and on our own, because unlike high school, people don't tell you what to do anymore!

Other words:
Counter intuitive: different from what you would expect : not agreeing with what seems right or natural
Tastemakers: a person who decides or influences what is or will become fashionable.
Both of these words are from an article for my online communications class, which we are talking about how to make a video go viral, because we are making a public service announcement video as our final project.

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/photos/autonomy-416.jpg

15A: Video Feedback

Our final video project for Inquiry is a problem solution type video of a typical problem that college students encounter. My topic is college level work, so I'm showing the amount of work and how it affects students, and solutions they can take to help with their work.

This week, our class watched everyone's rough draft final videos. I think it was a good idea because everyone could get feedback from each other about what we should add, what is good and what might need working on. My video was just text so far, and I had said I planned on adding some sort of video such as interviews or a skit. The feedback that I got from my peers was that I definitely needed a video or something in my final project, and also to add more pictures, and maybe add music to the beginning when I only have text.

I found that with watching everyone's videos, that the video was more interesting when there was a lot of creative aspect in it, such as a video. A couple of people's videos had a little humor in them, and that made it interesting, but also getting their point out at the same time. I also learned to check for spelling and grammar errors because you might not notice them, and then you see the video and it looks bad.

Everyone's thoughts and ideas really helped me to understand what I needed and what was good/bad about my video. I could also add more ‘college level thinking’ type of ideas into my video, such as getting more statistics and facts for my topic to incorporate into my video. I am also thinking about adding information about all the places on campus you can go and get help, such as the math tutorial center, writing center, ect, so you can get an idea of all the resources you can use that can help get all you work under control.

http://lawschooltoolbox.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/checklist.jpg