As this semester comes to the end, I can’t help but compare it to the last semester’s end and final week. By comparing the two semesters I can see how much growth I have made. There is a great contrast between the two semesters and I’m much happier now. I am much closer to many of my goals I want to achieve in college: finding the right major for me, finding myself, making lifetime friends, and becoming independent from my parents.
Something I’ve Noticed
Dr. McCoy used to be the sole facilitator of the conversation in our classroom, but as the semester ends the students have taken the reigns. Now, class discussions are partially student run. Throughout the semester we have become comfortable with each other and are better at interpreting and responding to each other’s ideas. We have made great improvement, but there is one thing that I noticed that is bizarre. Most of the class won’t start talking until Dr. McCoy leaves the room. Why are we waiting for our professor to leave?
The Cycle of Failure
I have been reading my classmates blog posts, and the struggles of reworking the Blood Child essay is a reoccurring theme. I sometimes let frustration keep me from: working on assignments, sharing my work, and communicating to my fullest potential. It took me a week to look at my Blood Child draft after Dr. McCoy’s revision. I knew I submitted something that wasn’t high quality, so I didn’t want to read the comments she sent.
Our Progress
In the beginning of the semester Dr. McCoy led discussions and us students were responsible to respond. As a class, we struggled to be participants. Dr. McCoy worked to pull thoughts out of us, and constantly asked us to unpack. I can remember when Dr. McCoy would say, “Jessica you’re nodding unpack.” It felt like pulling teeth at some points. Now we can elaborate and add to the conversation without que from an instructor.
Response to Hannah’s Post
Hannah Sharkey wrote a recent blog post about tragedy and the reality of tragedy. This blog post inspired me and I was reminded of my team and the support they give me. I believe that life is all about connections with people, and as tragedy happens we must come together.
There are so many struggles and adversities students go through while at college; we need a support system to survive it all. What about our administration, professors, and coaches? Yesterday at the end of a productive practice we gathered in a huddle to close practice. We do this after every practice as a ritual. Everyone is energized after practice because it’s our outlet. The huddle yesterday was different, my coach stopped us from laughing and had a serious face. Everyone looked around confused; we had a great practice. Are we in trouble? Completely vulnerable before the whole team, she started crying. We immediately knew what this was about. Coach recently lost her mom to cancer. She doesn’t talk about it often, because she wants to be strong for us. Coach told us she sold her childhood home recently. Yesterday was closing day of the house and she said her final goodbye with her sisters. She kept wiping her face and explaining how much she needed practice today. She had been crying all day and couldn’t wait for practice to cheer her up.
My Response to Courtney’s Blog Post
I want to put a disclaimer at the beginning of this blog post that: The class I am referring to has a male and a female professor, whose identities I don’t want to reveal. As I refer to them as the male and female professor that does not reflect how I view different genders. This blog post has nothing to do with gender differences; it’s about different teaching styles.
Courtney Ciardullo wrote a blog post about some of the effects of different teaching styles. Her blog post reminded me of my biology class first semester. The class had two professors and they alternated each unit. I never had two professors split one class before. After my experience in Biology, I believe that teaching style does affect the student’s performance.
Academic Probation
When students have less than 11 credits or have a GPA that falls below a 2.0 they are on academic probation at Geneseo. Academic probation can seem like a student’s drop out sentence, when it isn’t even close. During our class discussion of Geneseo’s academic probation letter, the initial reaction of many was that the college needs to be stern to push these students to do better. Following this view, my classmate’s explanation of tough love was the students on probation aren’t trying hard enough in their classes.
I believe that students on academic probation realize the significance of their situation. Students would drop out quickly if they didn’t care about their academic career. Geneseo’s Dean of Academic Planning and Advising Dr. Celia Easton was a part of the class discussion and said, “no student is admitted to Geneseo if they don’t have the ability to succeed here.” Every student attending Geneseo has value, and was admitted for a reason. Being on academic probation doesn’t mean the student isn’t smart or isn’t trying. There can be outside factors that hinder students from achieving their best.
The Pomodoro Technique
The first day of biology they bring up statistics that more than half the freshman pre-med students will not end up in the school of biology. I was surprised that the hardship of picking a major wasn’t over. When I came to college I never thought about the departments picking me. Biology is a gruesome major, but I always thought I could handle it. I got good grades in high school and my studying techniques always worked.
I learned after the first exam that my studying habits were not enough to pass biology. I began to spend a lot of time on biology. Even though, I wasn’t interested in learning about cell division I mastered it. Yet, my grades were lower than students who never attended any SI sessions and claimed they spent half the time I did. I had other classes and outside activities that I started to slack in. Sleep became a major issue for me. I wasn’t saving any time for myself. I ended up becoming the sickest I have ever been during finals week. Luckily, I survived just in time for winter break.
The class discussion on Five Strategies to Demystify The Learning Process, was important to me because it related to me struggling in the pre-med track. The article says you can be skilled at any subject when using proper studying techniques. The “Pomodoro Technique” is interval studying to better absorb material. The article explains this technique, “set a timer for 25 minutes and work until the timer goes off. At that point, take a five-minute break: stand up, walk around, take a drink of water, etc. After three or four 25-minute intervals, take a longer break (15 – 30 minutes) to recharge.” Personally, I could not get much done this way because it takes me about 15-30 to get focused. By the time I got into my work it would be break time, and I wouldn’t get anything done. Especially with the dense workload I had this technique wouldn’t work for me.
I agree that if you put your mind and heart to it you can do anything. But they fail to mention with that choice you must give up other things. I believe that you should be passionate about a topic, otherwise it prevents your success. I could have stuck with pre-med, but I would have had to give up lacrosse, my social life, studying abroad, and taking classes outside the strict track. It was my choice that I decided to find a topic that I am more skillful at and passionate about. The “Pomodoro technique” may work for some but I don’t think it would have changed the outcome of my science career.
“What College Will Be Like”
Ever since the beginning of high school, teachers harped on my classmates and I about college expectations. Writing classes had papers on reading assignments due every week. I was told, “this is preparing you for college” and “professors won’t baby you.” As Courtney said in class, high school scared us with many false claims about college. Nothing they said could have prepared me for being a student at Geneseo. There are so many factors that affect your college experience: major, living situation, other extra-curricular obligations. There is no one way to describe a student’s individual college journey and the people that influence them along the way.
Not even the GLOBE, Geneseo’s Learning Outcomes for Baccalaureate Education can describe my journey so far as a freshman. I have mixed feelings about how it relates to my experience here at Geneseo. The GLOBE is a about a page long, so it is pretty broad. The statements are meant to relate to Geneseo’s student body as a whole. One statement that caught my attention was, “In support of Geneseo’s institutional mission as a center of excellence in undergraduate education.” This sounds nice but most colleges have that end goal. As a high school student, I already knew I was going to college to get a degree. I needed preparation for the personal struggles that came in the process of getting my degree. Neither my previous teachers or the GLOBE talked about the process of being a young adult on your own for the first time. I have grown so much in just one semester: changing majors, walking onto a sports team, and living in a suite with people I had never met. I think the GLOBE would be more personal to me if a learning outcome was about finding yourself, and learning which programs you fit in. I’m still a figuring out a plan as an undeclared freshman. I wasn’t planning on switching my major after first semester, but I have grown so much in the process. The defining part of college so far for me has been finding my strengths and weaknesses.
A Whole New World of Writing
Writing without guidelines is a newly discovered struggle of mine. Assignments have always been structured around a proposed topic, argument, or question. I wrote to achieve the assigned word count, or to hit all of the rubric bullet points. I didn’t realize my reliance of doing so, until the stress I felt when Dr. McCoy didn’t assign a blog post word count. Without a word count I feared the unknown of what an “exceptional post” was supposed to look like.
I have improperly used templates my whole life. Templates were my safety blanket to avoid being “wrong” or “missing the lesson point.” It wasn’t until reading the Introduction of They Say I Say, that I viewed templates as a guide to expand on my own ideas. I am in the process of learning the skills of freedom of expression and being a critical thinker.