evolution of strategies (5B)

When I did my time study I was for the most part not surprised. I was proud that I was spending about 35 hours a week on homework and studying which is the recommended amount and was happy that I had about 45 hours or socializing and relaxation. This seemed to be above the class average for both categories. I consider both of these to be great successes in terms of what I want out of college; however I think I get more sleep than I really need. I sleep on average 10-11 hours a night. And while that not the highest in the class I still feel I could be doing more useful things instead of sleeping so much. This is my one downfall during my first few weeks. And I think the problem is I don’t think before I sleep. Most times if I feel tired I just go to bed, even if my alarm is set for 11 hours later. Sometimes I feel tired but it’s really just been a long day and I’m more “pooped” than legitimately tired. When this happens I spend hours awake trying to fall asleep simply because I’m not actually ready for bed yet. This is a small goal I want to achieve in the coming weeks. In the past 4 weeks I have been experimenting with different study habits and work strategies. This week I have analyzed how they have worked and whether or not I will continue them. And now I need to dismiss the failed parts, continue the good, and figure out new things to replace the failed parts. This is what I need to do now but I will use this strategy of evolving for future problems as well. So now a question to the reader, in your own life what is something you need to evolve around?

Football! (5I#5)

This week I attended the football game VS. Merrimack. The game was a close 40-34 but we came out on top. In high school I loved attending the football games with friends. It was always a great time and an opportunity to show pride in our school. Going to the college game with some friends reminded me of high school, just hanging out with some friends showing school pride. Although the game was exhilarating the best part was socializing with friends. While I miss the high school games, I look forward to attending many college football games with my new friends.

Agency (5V

An agency put simply is a place or group that offers a certain service to people. Most people think of government agencies but when you see its definition you see that many things can be defined as agencies. At southern there are many groups that help students become successful. An example is the writing center. These groups can be defined as agencies because they provide a service to people. The writing center helps students on essays or other writing assignment that they are struggling on.

Two words I learned this week are:

La taza which is Spanish for cup.

La lata which is Spanish for can.

5A Steps to success

Starting out college everyone is nervous. This is for many reasons but most of all is the warning given out by everyone before you arrive. Everyone tells you it’s so hard and that you are all on your own to complete everything. Not only that but if you don’t make it you will have lots of debt and nothing to show for it. Everything adults and teachers tell you is about how you have insane workloads and no one to watch your back. But in reality it’s just the next step to independence. Just like the jump from elementary school to middle school and from middle school to high school, college is just the next step. Yes there is more work but it’s not nearly as bad as I was made to fear. In high school you’re in school 6 hours 5 days a week. From this you have maybe 2 hours of homework each night. So you’re working approximately 35 hours a week. In college it’s just a little higher workload but with reversed roles. What I mean is you spend 15 hours in class rather than 15 on homework. The biggest struggle the first few weeks of college is adjusting to the swap and actually completing the work despite the many distractions. During my first 4 weeks of college I have completed everything I have been assigned, however not everything has been to my satisfaction. Sometimes I have had too much work and had to rush through some assignments at that last second. To fix this problem I plan to work ahead. This way I feel less pressure when I get multiple big assignments. Other than this I feel confident that I have been doing well for a freshman. All in all the different workload in college is simply another step in progressing through the world.

Quietly educated (4I #25)

For 95 percent of the time my dorm is quiet. However on occasion someone is having a few rowdy friends over or playing loud music. And some of that time I have work to do. So where can I go to be able to focus on my work? Well the library. It’s quiet because everyone there is in the same boat as me. Everyone in the library needs a place to focus on their work. Not only that but according to the rules you have to be quiet. It’s close to the dorms which is valuable and just about everyone knows about its excellence in being able to provide a quiet workplace.

Half-baked when born (4B)

Nature vs. nurture. Many people like to believe they control their lives and that life is really what they make of it. But in reality this is only half of the truth. See, there are more factors than just willpower, and the drive to be successful to true success. When we are born we are born with a certain “manual” attached. You can’t read it but you have to follow it. Genetics determine a lot about whom we are and who we will be. Once In an interview a famous psychologist said the following:

Interviewer: When nurturing children, how much nurture is enough?

Psychologist: “just enough”

You see there is no set amount of anything humans need in order to be successful, what we need to do in order to be successful is part of us as we are born. But like a half-baked cake there is still work to be done. This is where nurture come in. When we are being raise from the moment of birth to the time we go out as independent adults we are being developed, the other half of the cake is being baked. The marshmallow test is a fun activity and may have some correlation to success however it is certainly not a certain prediction. Correlation does not imply causation.

Now to relate this to nature vs. nurture. While a part of us is set when we are born we have years to change and develop the rest of our personality. Just because we don’t have patience when we are 4 years old does not mean we won’t later in life. On top of this there are other numerous factors that need to be taken into account. One is the child’s hunger at that time; if a child is full because he just ate he will be less likely to eat it than one that hasn't eaten in a few hours. Also in regards to shaping their future the socioeconomic status of the child’s family is important. If their parents are successful the chances of them being more successful are higher that if the parents are less successful. So my question is, "How much nurture is needed?"

Just keep waiting, waiting, waiting. (4A)

Nobody likes the doctors, but why? I mean in the end they tell you how healthy you are, or unhealthy. No one likes to get shots, get their finger pricked or any other of the necessary tasks so the doctor can send you on your way. But in reality the only complaint I really hear about the doctors on a constant basis is the wait. Is your doctor’s appointment at 10:30? More like 12:30, but in the end its worth waiting for. To know how healthy you are after a few hours wait is worth it to me. Like doctors appointments there are many things in life worth waiting for. One of which is a college degree. Because in the end you’ll be making more money doing what you love instead of making meager money doing a random job you found.

Many people believe Americans don’t have delayed gratification, however this implies that we are more impatient then the rest of the world, which is false. While Americans do hate to wait, it’s an irrelevant statement because everyone hates to wait. When you go to the doctor you don’t want to hear “your test results will be in ten years from now”. They want to hear immediately that they are all set and don’t need to worry about their health. Basically Americans are not particularly impatient, but people in general are.

In my opinion delayed gratification isn't something society can have a great deal of impact on. While we live in a fast paced world that certainly justifies delayed gratification, I think the real problem lies in the day to day life of people. I also don’t think society is willing to slow down in order to reinforce one psychological concept. To me it’s up to the individual and family values to teach people delayed gratification. If a family teaches patience, then their children will have a better sense of delayed gratification. I also would add that technology plays a small role in this psychological ideal. People complain that the internet is “laggy” or that it isn't fast enough for their tastes, however other that this I see no reason technology would influence delayed gratification.

I WANT IT NOW! (4V)

Delayed gratification is the ability to wait a period of time in order to obtain a reward. A synonym for this in my opinion would be willpower. This is an ability that very few people possess; people want to see results and often want to see them immediately. Understandably people want to receive more than they want to give. Greed is the source of failing to have delayed gratification.

In chemistry I learned what ionic compounds and covalent molecules are.

            Ionic compound: is a chemical compound in which ions are held together in a lattice structure by ionic bonds.

               Covalent molecule: is a molecule made of nonmetallic elements.

courtyard football (3I #24)

This week I played football with some friends in the residence quad. We played from about 5:30 to 7:00 and had a really fun time. We played one game of 7v7 which my team one and another game of 9v9 which my team also won. Not saying that I’m the best or even good but I made a few touchdowns and caught some great passes. They weren’t tackle games, but two hand touch. I made some new friends and was utterly exhausted afterwards. When I was done I ate, finished a good amount of homework, took a shower and went to bed.

motivation (3V)

Motivation is a drive that all people need in order to complete a task. Motivation varies just as tasks vary. If I had to put a word to describe the different levels of motivation it would be severity. If someone is starving and needs to get food, their motivations are very sever because their situation is severe. So their intrinsic motivation is very high. If someone asked them to do a worthless assignment they would have no motivation because the situation doesn’t call for it. Extrinsic motivation on the other hand is very temporary. If you pay someone to do something they will do it once. But after a while they will grow tired and not want to do that task any more.

In chemistry I learned the difference between chemical and physical changes.

Physical change is a change of form. When water melts or evaporates, or when you mold clay into a certain change.

Chemical change is when you change the atoms. When iron rusts or coal is burned.

Cuts and bruises (3A)

When I was young my father taught me a valuable lesson. And that lesson is that “there is no good without bad.” What he meant at the time is that without having a bad day, you can’t have a good one. From all I can tell he was exactly right. But he was right in other tenses of the phrase as well. You can look at everything, every situation, in two lights. In most cases when something bad happens people only see the downside. Like one time when I was a kid and I fell off my bike and scraped my knee. This is a situation almost everyone has encountered during their childhood. When this happens almost all people cry or go to mom for a band aid and a kiss to heal their scrap. However this lesson is a blessing in disguise. If we don’t fall off our bike as children we won’t learn that balance is necessary to ride a bike. Shakespeare meant that all situations are neutral at the start. He means that perception of situations is the only thing that matters.

When we fall off our bikes as immature children we see it as a bad situation. We have physical pain, but when we are older we see it as a blessing. It not only desensitized us to pain a little bit more but we also see it as a metaphor. When your training wheels are taken off your bike it is the same thing as going to college. Just as the two training wheels stopped us from falling, our parents stopped us from failing. But now it’s our turn to learn to balance. Not balance our weight on a bike but balance our time in a day. We will get scraped and cut at first, but in the end we will be smarter more independent people then we were before.

TV's flow (3B)

Everyone I've ever met has watched TV. And the vast majority of people watch it on a regular basis. Some watch the news to know what’s going on in the world. Others watch it for the weather, and some watch it for the entertainment. Now everyone has their reasons for watching it but when I watch TV I lose myself. It’s an escape from the rest of the world. When I’m under a lot of stress, I will on most occasions just sit down watch an episode of a show and just forget all my worries. This is when I get into my state of full relaxation. While it doesn't take much energy to watch TV it does take concentration to not get “sucked in”. When you watch one good episode it’s hard not to want to see the next, but like all students I have work to do. So when I’m overwhelmed ill watch an episode of a good TV show and go into flow. Before long I've had a small break, and a chance to think of what I’m going to do to accomplish my tasks at hand.

Some might say that TV is too passive of an activity to really require a state of flow. But what is flow really? Flow to me is when you are so immensely concentrated on something all other troubles vanish from your mind. All stress is gone from you and you can stay calm for a bit. To me the most important thing in life is to maintain a balance of all modes of thought and emotions. I think the best life will have just as much work done as fun had. Just as much stress as we do relaxation. And to accomplish this we need to set aside times to do certain things. Find what relaxes you and do that for every hour you work. This way you will live a life of prosperity but simultaneously a life of happiness, to have no regrets is life’s greatest possible accomplishment.

Back in high school everyone did their work differently, but for the most part those who were successful really only had to work hard. In high school you have a relatively rigged and set schedule. So all you needed to do was complete the work on time which is not hard. No assignments were really challenging or required much thought. In college however most of the learning is done on your own time as you have a much more fluid schedule. Instead of learning in class you learn on your own. Not only that but the questions posed are more complex, requiring more time to come to the correct conclusion. One article I thought summed this up well was the work hard or work smart article. It sums up the fact that in college you need to work hard and smart, not just hard. “Working Smart = Making a Plan… Working Hard = Working the Plan” (http://www.deliverfreedom.com/blog/work-hard-or-work-smart/) in high school it’s pretty much set in stone that you do your homework when you get home from school, in college you need to plan out when to do it during the week.

In high school I neither worked hard or smart. I did the requirements and after a test I forgot everything. In college I hope to perfect working hard and smart. I hope that I can keep up this method of accomplishing work for a long time after. It seems obvious and simple when you read it but no one ever thinks to put this technique in words and really think about it deeply. How to Become a Deep Thinker at College talks about how you need to take a variety of courses and spent extra time in order to become a deeper thinker, however I disagree with this. Deep thinking isn’t something you can just learn by taking numerous classes, it’s something you develop over a lifetime. Thinking deeply is a talent you more or less discover rather than learn. For example I can learn CPR (which I have) but in reality a teacher can’t just explain “do steps 1, 2, and 3 and you’ll be a great deep thinker”. People must discover deep thinking on their own or in other words there is no way to guide someone to think.

The Greeks (2I #9)

When I attended the involvement fair I was particularly interested in the Greek life. My brother went to UCONN and always spoke highly of his fraternity. He loved the parties but also the camaraderie of the organization. He said it was a lot of fun but also a motivator to do work, as his fraternity required a certain amount of study time in the library depending on your grades.

            I noticed two fraternities here at southern, one was Alpha Phi Delta and the other was Beta Mu Sigma. Since it is the beginning of the year they are rushing in order to get new members. For those of you that do not know what rushing is, it is a period of time where they have many open events and they try to get to know potential new members. If they like you and think you would be a good addition to the organization they will invite you to join. The next step is initiation, where they put you through a series of tests and activities. Upon finishing initiation you become a member of the organization.

Lead (2V)

Initiative is a relatively simple word to many. It is thinking of a solution to a problem and implementing the solution. I can simplify it even further than that by saying Initiative is going in and doing whatever’s necessary. Whether it’s leading a class discussion or saying hello to a new person. I have always been an initiator when needed. But sometimes I like to hang back, not because I don’t want to initiate, but because I want to see if someone else will get up and lead for a change.

In my chemistry class we went over more terms but two of the most important ones were as follows.

Homogeneous - this is when a mixture has the same proportions throughout the mixture. An example would be sugar water.

Heterogeneous – this is when a mixture has regions or layers to it. An example would be salad dressing.

Organization? not for me! (2B)

As long as I can remember I have been extremely disorganized. I remember that at the end of every year in high school I would pull a book out of my backpack and 20-30 papers would come out with it. I never had folders or binders to organize myself, as well as no place to put old papers away at home. Well, you see that’s what I told people, but in all honesty there were places to put papers and there were shelves to store useless old graded assignments. See when it comes to organization it’s not about the lack of resources, it’s about laziness. I always had the time and resources to be that perfectly organized student. But why clean your backpack when there’s the awesome TV to watch, or friends to hang out with? I always thought that it was useless. I did great in school despite the disorganization. I always had my homework done and never was missing a paper. Sure it might take me an hour or two to find “that paper” but it was there, somewhere in the endless pit of papers that was my backpack.

If you look at the backpack above, that level of disorganization doesn't even compare to my backpack in high school. I remember teachers AND CLASSMATES gasping at my backpack. They literally inhaled loudly at the sight of me opening it. People even made jokes about how my backpack was bigger than me! (I won’t lie, it kind of was.) But that’s beside the point, at the end of last year I made a vow to myself that I would be organized in college, and that my half of the dorm would be clean. That my papers would be on the proper shelves and that at the end of every day I would clean thoroughly to maintain this organization. So far I have kept to this vow. And I see no reason I cannot keep to it, however only time will tell if my willpower is stronger than that of the dreaded TVs.