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While reading through blog posts written by my INTD 105 classmates, I came across a post titled “Risks and Mistakes” by Mikaela Freeman. She wrote that “taking a risk and trying something new or facing a challenge often provides more benefits than downfalls.” This point stood out to me and made me consider a time that I faced a new challenge which presented risk and resulted in reward. I immediately thought of the astronomy course I took as my science general education elective.

Geneseo requires students to take numerous general education classes to experience a diverse learning experience. Having to take courses in subjects that do not present interest to students can lead to uneasiness. Many people believe that college is a time for students to develop skills that relate to their major. This is why many students wonder why they have to take classes in topics that have no relation to their field of study. Having this doubt is understandable, but the benefits of general education classes can prove to be substantial. Continue reading “The Benefits of Challenge”

I recall the Bloodchild essay and prompt being announced and being absolutely stumped. I had no idea what academic partnership or the bigger conversation it was a part of. When I signed up for this INTD, I was fascinated and yet completely clueless to what the risks and rewards of academic partnership truly meant.  I was enticed to this INTD partly because of the reputation of the Professor but simultaneously interested in expanding my learning and my mind. I felt as if the class would speak of cooperation between people and this interested me as an International Relations because my major, in my opinion, is about fostering  international cooperation and peace between partners for equitable relationships. 

I never thought I could feel confident with my Bloodchild submission because I was not truly thinking when I wrote the first draft. Professor McCoy told me I often circled because I did not know where I was going with the essay and that was absolutely true. She commented on my essay that I had five different “kernels” that could grow into essays. I was lost on how I could possibly make one essay connecting a story like Bloodchild to Geneseo’s GLOBE, because initially I found them to be vastly different. Through thinkING and looking over Beth’s comments as well as thinking of the “they say” I finally comprehended what I was writing. I have “delighted” myself as Beth has said we would in our syllabus and I have definitely made myself feel good. 

When we assigned to complete a blogging assignment I was very unsure of what to expect. I did not ever have to do an assignment like this for a class and I was beyond nervous at the thought. Compiling coherent thoughts concise enough into a blog scared me a little because my thoughts often tends to race and I would expose my thought to everyone. There is a level of vulnerability to blogging like this, I guess that it took me a great deal of time to post.

Although being scared has deterred me from my fair share of challenges, this class certainly helped me grow as a writer and student. I feel as if our classroom is a very open environment where I can share my thoughts and I am not really worried about “backlash.” Our classroom is an open, ongoing conversation that I am glad to be a part of. 

I have always been a perfectionist. For most of life, this was a useful trait—it pushed me to work hard and do my best work all the time. But as my courses have gotten harder, my perfectionism has started to cause more problems for me. In high school and now also in college, I have taken more classes that pushed me outside of my comfort zone. This has afforded me valuable opportunities to grow, but it has also meant that I have been taking classes in which I don’t already have the skills to excel. The nature of my perfectionism is such that if I don’t know how to do something perfectly, I have a very difficult time getting myself to even start working on it. Because of this, the only thing I’ve learned how to excel at is procrastination.  Taken to the extreme, this has led to times where I just didn’t submit assignments because I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to do them perfectly. Intellectually, I know that submitting an assignment even if it’s not perfect is better than getting a zero. I have done the calculations to prove this, and in most cases where I didn’t turn in an assignment, my grade would have been substantially better even if I had gotten a 50% rather than a 0%. Despite seeing these numbers though, I still can’t get myself to believe that not only is turning in an imperfect assignment better than not turning it in at all, but even that it’s okay to turn in an assignment that isn’t perfect.

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.

Continue reading “The Cycle of Failure”

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.

Continue reading “Our Progress”

One part of Geneseo’s GLOBE is a learning outcomes section. Lately in class, we have been working in groups to produce a well-rounded paragraph discussing about the article “The Power of Realistic Expectations”. One can see how Dr. McCoy has made an effort to incorporate the GLOBE in our overall course work. For example, in group work we use critical thinking, communication, and leadership and collaboration.

In the GLOBE, critical thinking is defined as “…to establish and pursue systematic and valid methods for collecting and evaluating relevant evidence; to draw soundly reasoned and appropriately limited conclusions on the basis of evidence; to relate conclusions to a larger body of knowledge”. In the beginning of our group work, we set up a plan to reread our paragraph individually, then discussed what we should keep and what should we discard, or what we could make stronger. For example, after everyone was done rereading, we came to conclusion that the paragraph was very wordy, and that we deleted many parts of our paragraph to make it more concise. Also, our group went back to the article to pull out information to strengthen our paragraph. Kevin pulled out a quote which we connected to the overall theme of the paragraph, which is that making the academic probation letter more narrative and less harsh made students reach out for help faster. Critical thinking is a learning outcome that SUNY Geneseo strives for because afterwards, students realize how much progress that have made over the course of 4 years or, in this case, a class period. Continue reading “The GLOBE goes beyond the webpage”

I am currently reading W. Timothy Gallwey’s The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance, a book that my coach Ben Wach recommended to me in light of the anxiety I’ve been having about racing. Among the many aspects of this book that stood out to me, one part reminded me of our INTD class. Gallwey quoted the “very wise person” that had once told him that there are three types of people who respond to obstacles in different ways, the third of which “tries to find a viewpoint where what is on the other side of the obstacle can be seen. Then, only if the reward is worth the effort, does he attempt to overcome the obstacle.” (page 123)

Continue reading “Gan’s Inner Game of Tennis”

Dr. Cecelia Easton, the Dean of Academic Planning and Advising, recently discussed Geneseo’s letter of academic probation with my INTD class. After examining the letter with us, she said that her goal is to change its negative tone. To involve students in the process, Cecelia asked our class to revise and rewrite a new version of the letter. Our INTD professor, Dr. McCoy, advised us that the best way to approach this task would be through group work. This opportunity was perfect for our class because we have been focusing on group work and balance since the beginning of the semester. Continue reading “The Risks of Group Work”