14I: Campus Writing Center

Southern's writing center is a great place for students to go when they need help with their writing skills, or help with a paper or assignment. Located in Engleman A-012, there are many different writing tutorials there to get you started such as: starting a paper, developing ideas, reviewing grammar, and clarifying thoughts. The center can be used for starting, continuing or reviewing a writing assignment. It's not just used as a resource for editing papers, it is designed to help your writing skills improve! The center wants you to better yourself as a writer and have more confidence and be a better writer! Visit them and you'll be sure to get more writing knowledge.

To schedule an appointment, call 203-392-8967

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14V: Investment

The definition of 'investment' is "the investing of money or capital in order to gain profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value." When people hear the word investment, they usually think of money, as in investing money into a stock market or something, but there is more to the word than that.

Investment definitely comes into play in a college students life. For one, you are investing a lot of money to get a good education for a job in the future, but also investing your time into work and studying for all your classes. You wouldn't want to waste lots of money by not taking school seriously and slipping in all of your classes would you? College is a big time investment, both financially and mentally, so you need to take it seriously and know that all the 'investing' that you're making with your schoolwork will eventually pay off in the future when you have a degree! (and a job!)

Other important words from this week are thankful and stress. 
Stress is definied: a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc.
Thankful is defined: : glad that something has happened or not happened, that something or someone exists, etc.: of, relating to, or expressing thanks

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14B: Warning; Cheesy Thanksgiving post!

Thanksgiving is a time where families gather around the table, share a big, delicious meal and are thankful for what they have. I'd say that I'm pretty thankful in general, because I'm lucky to have a roof above my head, clothes on my body and food to eat, because some people don't have that. Some people don't realize that the little things are the most important. 

In my life, I have so many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for a great family and I love spending time with my family because we are all so close to each other and love doing things together. I live with my mom, dad, and two brothers and we all get along and enjoy being in each other’s company. Of course, my family outside that is terrific as well. All of my cousins, my aunts/uncles, and grandmother are amazing as well and I love all of them.

I am also very thankful for my friends. My friends always know how to make me smile and we always have good times together. Specifically, I am very thankful for my best friend Alison, who is like a sister I've always wanted. I can tell her anything and go to her whenever, and I always look forward to hanging out with her. We have been friends for about 14 years, and she is and will always be my forever friend. I love all of my friends and am glad I met every one of them because they are all amazing.

To list other things I am thankful for would be the following; my health, my education, my home, food, clothes, my car and my phone. Of course those are just some of the many things I am thankful for every day of my life. I am blessed beyond belief and even though my life can get rough sometimes, I wouldn’t change a thing with it, and I believe ‘everything happens for a reason.’ Thanksgiving brings people together, but you should always be thankful for what you have and cherish the people around you. Happy Thanksgiving!!

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14A: Thanksgiving break and finals!

Thanksgiving time for most people is a time to relax, hang out with your family and EAT! Typically, everyone will be having a huge Thanksgiving turkey dinner with all different foods, and be thankful for all that we have. 

This week, in order to have some 'stress relief' from school, I mostly was hanging around and trying not to worry about anything. Since it was Thanksgiving, I spent time with my family and friends, which is always a nice thing to do and to have some fun. The earliest I have to get up during the school week is 9:00am, so I can’t say I really had to ‘catch up on sleep’, but I was able to sleep until whenever I want to (and sleep is always a good thing!!), and I will just be able to not worry about any homework I have for the week other than my inquiry video project that I am working on. Overall, just hanging out with friends and family, sleeping, and being able to do whatever is how I spent my break, and it was very stress relieving to do so.

To prepare for my finals, I will obviously have to start gathering everything I need to study with. For my history exam, it is a multiple choice, matching and true and false questions on everything we've learned this semester. I have kept my study guides and the notecards that I made, so I will easily be able to study for that one. For my online communications class, our final is a presentation, along with inquiry which is our video projects. Luckily in my sociology class we are able to use our notes, so I will have to gather those and sort through them in order to study. Last is math, and we were given a study guide on what the test pretty much will look like (just changed the words and numbers around.) If I am able to understand and work through the study guide then I will be able to pass my final. My finals will be (hopefully) easy to work through and get through if I study enough and make sure I am prepared and understand everything I need.

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13B: Creative style videos

My final video for INQ class is focusing on college level work. Since this is a problem-solution type video, it will show the problems that students have with the new workload they encounter, and how they can deal with it, be less stressed and focus on school. And there are many problems that first year students encounter, much being their new amounts of work and how to deal with it all. Since this is a video project, it should have some sort of creativity toward it to make people want to watch it! I have thought of some ways that I will add creativity into my video project.

In order to make my video better than my midterm video, I will definitely be adding some sort of music or background to the parts of my video I will be writing on. I will want to have a lot of pictures to make the video more fun and entertaining for people to watch. Also, I will be sure to interview people and get their actual interviews in my video. I am thinking about adding something that will make my video more creative and so people are actually interested and hearing what I am trying to say and get out to people. I will somehow want to figure out how to make my video more 'special' than anyone else's and how people can be interested in it.

I also may want to add some sort of statistics toward how many first year college students are stressed out because of their work, or just what the percentage of them are. To do this, I could look up statistics or I could even make a survey of my own and give it to college students to take. Some of the questions I could ask could be how they feel about the work, if they find resources helpful, office hours, ect and ways they can deal with their work. I also am thinking of adding a stress relieving section where I can have stress relievers students can try out and use. I want my video to help college students to understand that college work is hard, but it is manageable and there are many ways you can manage and get through it all!

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13A: Final Video Project- College style

For our midterm project, our class had to make a video on a specific part of Southern that we thought was fun or helpful and all different parts of a college experience. My topic was Southern's resources, and to be honest, I didn't put as much effort into it as I could. For our final project which we are beginning right now, we have a same video project assignment, but this time our topics have to be a 'problem-solution' argument. For my topic, I chose the problem of 'college level work'. Coming into college, you know it's going to be different and probably more work than you're used to in high school, but what kind of work? How will everything affect you? I chose my topic because I feel like a lot of people (including myself) are still adapting to the amount of work we have and the 'college level' that it requires.

My video will exhibit a high level of college-level thinking because I will put a lot of thought into it. I will think deep into what I want my message to be in my video. That message will show that college level work is definitely different than high school, but there are ways you can figure out how to get your work done and not be so stressed about all of it. I also want to get many peoples views on college level work. I want to ask teachers how they feel about it, or how some students can adjust, and definitely ask students their opinions. An example of a question for a teacher would be “How do you feel the work in college differs from high school work?” and “How could students adjust to the workload that they have?”  I will make sure to get a lot of deep thoughts, questions, and answers all in my video!

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13V: Purpose

The web definition of 'purpose' is "the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists." There is normally a purpose toward everything in life, and everyone believes they have a purpose in life, which is very true.

However, what is the 'purpose' of going to college and getting an education? Most people think that they need an education just to get a job and live their lives, but there is more purpose toward going to college than just being able to get a job. We've talked about getting a "liberal arts education" which is very important because it prepares you with more knowledge that you can use in the workplace, and most employers look for employees with a liberal arts education anyway. It gives you extensive knowledge and prepares you for the real world, not just the subject of what you're job is. Overall there is a purpose to everything and we've learned a lot about the purpose of a great college education. 

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13I: Registration

The past couple of months of college have flown by and at 6:00am on Monday November 18th, most freshman students were struggling to pick out their classes for the second semester. I had gotten up around 5:45 to get ready and from 6 to 6:30am I hadn't gotten into the system yet, or it kept crashing on me. Being so early and so frustrated, I tried as hard I could not to scream and yell at my computer. Finally, I was able to get through and went as fast as I could to attempt to get the classes I wanted. My only concern right now with my schedule is my math class which is from 6:15-7:30pm, because I wouldn't want to be on campus that late as a commuter. I know this is my first time registering and probably (hopefully) will be the only tough and really stressful registration I will have!!

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12B: Q&A

This weeks readings focused on a "Liberal Arts Education" and what it can do for students all around the world. Like last week, we are thinking again of 'college level questions' about the readings that we can dig deep into the articles and answer in a great college level response.

My questions:
1. Why does a liberal arts education benefit students?
2. Why should students be 'innovation ready' rather than 'college ready'? Why is that important?
3. How are liberal arts and innovation related?

3). Innovation is something we've talked about in class and it has been a part of our readings as well. Talking about liberal arts this week, the term innovation came up again. These two terms can be very much related to each other. Nowadays, employers are looking for employees who can bring innovation into the workplace. Why? Because they want to know that you are using your brain in just more ways of doing your specific task at work. They want you to come up with new ideas yourself that can impact the workplace greatly. Liberal arts education can teach you how to take different ideas and incorporate them into your work. As stated in the article "Liberal Arts and the Work Place" by Tim Hall, "a candidate's demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major." Employers don't necessarily just look for the specific skills used in the work place, but other skills that can be very beneficial toward them and can also be learned in a liberal arts education. You can use innovation and bring in other skills and thoughts to the work place. Overall, innovation and liberal arts can be easily related to each other. When you have a liberal arts education, you can bring more innovation to not only the work place, but also your life. When you learn all different skills and different subjects, you can learn more about the world, be a smarter person, and contribute lots in the work place!

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12V: Interdisciplinary Perspective

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Interdisciplinary perspective refers to two areas of learning or subjects that share the same context or they have a similarity. For example, if you're talking about a specific subject in one class, then you might be able to relate it to a different subject class. This term relates to the one we've been talking about in class this week, Liberal arts. The two tie together because a liberal arts education can easily be taught through interdisciplinary perspective. When you're taking ideas from all different topics and ideas, you're not just focusing on the main focus of your career, you're learning many other things. I think interdisciplinary perspective can be a good thing because you can take two sides of one subject and see how they compare to each other, and use them together.


Other words: 
subsidize: support (an organization or activity) financially.
Liberal arts: academic subjects such as literature, philosophy, mathematics, and social and physical sciences as distinct from professional and technical subjects.

12A: Liberal Arts Education!

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Coming into SCSU, I honestly had no idea what a liberal arts education even meant, so I'm glad I'm able to learn about it and see what it's all about. A 'liberal arts education' is general knowledge and how to develop intellectual ability and can be used in many fields in the workplace. The articles that we read this week were all about what liberal arts education is and what it provides students with, and how it is beneficial to students. Rather than developing specific skills, it provides knowledge to many different topics, even one's that you may not think are useful towards yourself, and gives you a rather 'in depth' look at topics and think ways you may not have thought to think about. To have a liberal arts education means you have more knowledge of everything around you. 

In the article "Liberal Arts and the Workplace" by Tim Hall states "...virtually all employers concluded that "a candidate's demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timhall/liberal-arts-and-the-work_b_3055433.html) Liberal arts education provides students with more knowledge than just their specific area of study or work field knowledge. A lot of employers seek out employees who are going to bring more innovation into the workplace, and with a liberal arts program you can be taught the skills necessary to contribute innovation and to have more knowledge to bring into work. Employers seek it also because the skills are helpful to adapting with changes in the workplace, and to work well with others. 

Some people think it's kind of pointless to learn other things that they aren't going to use in their work field, however, the more stuff you know the more you can do things with them. The skills of critical thinking, communication and problem solving also come into play with a liberal arts education, and to have those skills means they can be well equipped with problem solving in the work place and understanding how to communicate with others. Being able to explore different topics in general is something useful for everyone because you never know what you'll get out of it. Overall, a liberal arts education can be very beneficial to students and impact their future in various great ways. 

12I: Multicultural Center

Since there is a lot of diversity around campus, Southern's multicultural center is a great place to understand the importance of it and different programs to go along with it. Their mission is for students to share their ideas and get knowledge about diversity. Located in room 234 of the Adanti Student Center, they offer organizations and activities for students to get involved with to learn about diversity. Some of the traditional programs and events include speakers throughout the year, cultural performances and arts presentations, film series for heritage months, diversity week, women's history month observance (along with other months observances such as Martin Luther King Day), and much more.


Hours: 

Monday-Thursday
8:30am-7:00pm
Friday
8:30-4:30pm

You can visit their website below: 
http://www.southernct.edu/student-life/support/mcc/

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11A: College Based Questions and Answers

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This week’s readings were focused on creativity and innovation. The articles that we read had a lot of information in them, and there are definitely some questions you can form from the readings to wonder about. But how can we come up with ‘college level’ questions to ask ourselves? Yes, there are the typical questions, “What was the article about?” “How should you use the article in your life” and so on, that can easily be answered, but then there’s questions where you need to think, analyze, compare and contrast, ect, and view the articles from many different sides. Some of the questions that we are asked in class are different from ones we are used to and this week we were told to come up with our own inquiry questions based off of the readings. These questions, however, needed to be striving toward a ‘college level’ type question. The questions should be thought out and having you really think about what you read before writing down an answer.

The questions that I came up with for the readings are:

1.       What is the ‘Overnight Test’ and how can it impact your creativity?

2.       How does being bored impact your creativity?

3.       How can we teach ourselves to become more innovative? Can we teach others as well?

4.        What is ‘interleaving’ and why should you use it? What helpfulness does it give you?

Answer to #2:

When you are bored, your mind is wandering. When you are thinking about something, or doing something productive, your mind is more focused on that one task itself. Being bored makes you think of new ideas, and some that you didn’t even know you could think of. When you are not doing anything, when you’re sitting around, you’re thinking. You can think of new things to do, and think the most random thoughts you can imagine. All of these thoughts will boost your creativity.They also say that the most ‘bored’ people are the most creative ones. I think that this is a true fact because you can do a lot more than you think when you are bored and it will show through your creativity! 

11V: Innovation

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Innovation is defined as "A new idea, device or method; the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods". How would a college student define innovation? Myself would define it as a way to come up with new ideas and putting them into play. Coming up with new ideas yourself is a great thing for you to do and it can be very useful to you.

There are many ways that a student could successfully use innovation in their schoolwork. For one, they can think of new methods of studying or working. They can use their ideas to then better their schoolwork. Everyone has different ideas, and everyone is trying to make their ideas better than the original in today’s day. In an article we read this week called “32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow”, it showed many different ideas that people had that will change the way we live once they are introduced. Examples of the innovations included electric clothes, the mind reading shopping cart, and clean hair no hands, which cleans your hair completely for you. The innovations were very interesting to read and gave you a lot of thought of what could come into play in the future!

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Other words: 
continuum: a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct.
frivolous: not having any serious purpose or value.

11B: Comparing Questions

As college students, we need to learn how to put more thought into our readings, and answer college level based questions on the readings, as well. This week, we were all told to come up with 4 good inquiry questions based on the readings we had for class. Looking through other peoples blogs I found many that I thought were college leveled questions, and have chosen a few that I really liked. 

One of the questions was from Sam’s blog (samanthamonaco.blogspot.com), and asked:
“4: Most people believe that there are only benefits from making a task easier. The author Ian Leslie of “Creativity, Education, and the Gift of Stress” explains his take on this matter. What was his take? How did the advent of the home computer affect young poetry in the example provided?”

I thought that her question was very well thought out, and didn't just ask one specific question, she asked a couple, and you needed to dig deep inside the readings to locate the answers. This type of question is good because it shows if you really read the article first of all, and if you analyzed it well enough to retain a good answer. The answer that she wrote was also very well thought out and answered all the parts of the question. She gave all specific examples from the article to know that she did know what he was talking about, and that she could answer it in a very organized way.

One other question that I found to be a very good one was from Steph’s blog (http://stepphhr7.blogspot.com/). I liked two of her questions, one was “How does the creative industry hold people who are creative ransom to their own self-image?” and the other was “What are ways we can promote more creativity? Why are these important looking towards the future?” I thought both of those questions were very college based because they call for your own thoughts rather than taking information from the readings and putting it into an answer. This is a good type of question, because it’s not really considered ‘college based’ question unless you are putting your own thought into it, and thinking about what you read, rather than taking it straight from the article and putting it into an answer. In college, your teachers don’t expect you to read your readings and retain all of the information straight out. Instead, they want you to put more thought into it, and analyze the question more so that they know you are thinking in a more "college" way. 

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11I: West Rock

This week I decided to take a hike with some friends at West Rock. I've been wanting to for a while, and I've finally got the chance to do it. Located right behind Southern, it was a fun hike, and the view from the way top was awesome. While walking up, we got to see some amazing views, although at some points it was scary because we were near the edge of the rocks!
I think that everyone at Southern should hike up West Rock at one point or another, and even multiple times! It's a fun way to get some exercise and even a good way to get away from everything at school if you need to.

10B: The Creative Life

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I believe that everyone has some sort of sense of creativity inside them, whether it being artistically, your actions, you ability to so something or through sports, those are just a couple of ways people can be seen creative. Before learning all about it, I thought that being creative just meant having a lot of ideas in your head and using them to do something specific. But there is more to it, and there may be factors toward your creativity.

For example, some people may have a "muse" in their life. Muse is defined as:
a. A guiding spiritb. A source of inspiration.

#21/22 I believe my muse would be either my mother or my grandmother. Although my grandmother passed away 6 years ago, she is one of my greatest inspirations and I want to live just like she did. She always was helping people and was a very caring person, loved her family and friends and would do anything for them. She taught me many things that I will carry with me throughout my life, some being thoughtfulness, ambition and how to be a caring person. Along with her, my mother is also another inspiration toward me because she is my role model and will always look out for me no matter what, and is just a very loving person. I think that all people should have a 'muse' and that they could very well be related to how you are as a person, how you think and how you act.

#32
Mastery was a topic we've talked about in class and read readings about, how people view it, what mastery is, and how long it actually takes to 'master' something. I believe that the idea of mastery is to believe that you can do something, put your beliefs to the test, and see a result, whether being good or bad. I believe that with hard work and dedication, you can master something. Also, I think that creativity could have something to do with mastery. If you're more creative, then you have a lot more ideas, and think beyond your normal capacity, which could help you master things easily.

10V: Let's Get Creative!

 

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Creativity is a trait that everyone wants to have, strives to have, and feels great if they have it. But what is it, exactly? The dictionary definition is:

“The use of the imagination or original ideas, esp, in the production of an artistic work.” 

Creativity is a great thing for college students to have, because they can increase their basic thoughts and have more ideas on everything. In order to be creative, you need to 'think outside the box', and there are many ways you can be creative except artistically, which many people think is the only way you can be creative. In this week’s readings, they talked about the importance of this trait and how some schools lack it, and that is a bad thing because we need creativity in order to become successful and more smart. In one article, they said creative thinking is the key to successful innovation. Basically without creativity, we wouldn't get anywhere in our lives! Whether you know it or not, you have some creativity inside you, and you can make it better and learn how to become more creative. 


Other words:
Inherent: existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.
Muse- a. A guiding spirit.

b. A source of inspiration.

10I: A Spooky Night with Lorraine Warren

On Wednesday, October 30^th, at 8:00pm, Southern had the great pleasure of having ghost hunter Lorraine Warren at the Lyman Center. I myself, am a fan of ‘scary’ things and love to watch scary movies, so I was very interested in what she had to say and was excited about the presentation. Part of the topic of the night’s discussion was about the film "The Conjuring", which came out in July of this year, and was based on true cases of the Warren files.  Lorraine said that even if she was paid a million dollars, she would never set foot in that house ever again, that’s how much it completely terrified her. Lorraine and her late husband, Ed Warren, went all over and helped people with their paranormal and demonic forces that were haunting their homes and families.

The first part of the presentation, however was very interesting to me. Lorraine and her son in law, Tony, were showing pictures which captured images of ghosts or spirits in them. For example, there was one photo taken in a graveyard and you could see the outline of a woman’s face through the whiteness of the ghostly activity that was in the picture. All of the pictures were real and all of them had some sort of story behind what was being shown in the image. We were also shown an exorcism of a real man, who was also featured in the movie The Conjuring at one point, and it was thrilling to see how a real exorcism went down.

At 86 years old, Lorraine is a great storyteller and it amazes me that she loves what she does and still comes out to see people and talk to them about her experiences with the supernatural, demons, ghosts, ect! And overall, it was a very exciting and scary night for all who were there! 

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10A: Video Reflection

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For our midterm project in INQ, instead of a test or a paper, we had to create a video on something we thought was interesting about Southern and wanted to tell people about it. My video was on Southern’s Resources, and how they are helpful to all of the students. I found a lot of information, because there are a lot of things at Southern that are useful to students. I didn't use every single resource that is available, and tried to pick the most important ones and ones that I thought were most beneficial. Most of the resources I used were helping students with their schoolwork/education. The time of my video, however, was a little short, it was a little over 3 minutes long, when the video was supposed to be 5-6 minutes long. I interviewed people, but I never recorded the interview, I just asked them questions and wrote the answers into my video. I got my video done on time, it did have a beginning, a middle, but sort of lacked a real ending, so that could have been something I needed to work on.

If I ever have to do a video project again, I will want to learn more about the movie maker program that I used so I would be able to make my project better. I think that was the hardest thing for me because I didn't exactly know how to work the program, so if I figured out how to work it better I would make the whole presentation more interesting. I also found more information on different resources afterwards, so maybe next time I would do more research as well and give everything I can find! For a grade, I would probably give myself a B- because I had a lot of good information, some pictures, but I could have definitely added more to it to make it more fun and capturing the audiences attention better!