Well, we have reached the end of classes for this semester, and I can’t say that I’m not glad they’re over. It’s not something I really would have thought about at the beginning of, or even throughout the semester, but after reflecting on it now, I definitely have growth as a writer, a student and even a person. After taking classes such as this one, after presenting research, after writing papers I have definitely changed in way that I can recognize within myself. All of these things have allowed me to better realize my strengths, and especially my faults. I’m well on my way to fulfilling learning outcomes prescribed by the GLOBE, fulfilling the colleges vision and adhering to its values, as well as adhering to my own. In some ways I have become a better writer, and a better critical thinker; in other ways not so much. But what is most important to realize, what I have realized, is that like writing, becoming a better person is a process. It’s not something that’s quick, and it’s not something that’s easy, it takes hard work and dedication, but it does happen, and it is achievable. If there is anything I will take away from this class, or from college at all, it’s that I always have the potential to be a better version of myself, I just have to put in the effort.
Gen Ed’s
As part of every college students curriculum are general education requirements. These usually take the forms of history, english, science, maths, a language, arts, and humanities. Many students tend to see these as obstacles preventing them from learning what they came to go to school for. For example, last semester I had to take both creative writing and film studies to fulfill fine art requirements. Neither of those classes were ones that I would have chosen to take had I any real choice. They were also not classes that I really enjoyed. I would have much rather taken classes relevant to my career path, like astronomy or anthropology. Why then do we take these classes? To fulfill the outlines of the GLOBE and row as students. There is a reason Geneseo is known as a liberal arts college, because all of its students must be versed in a variety of topics. By taking these classes, learning a variety of topics, and meeting and interacting with a variety of other students, we can only hope to grow as students and people.
The Disillusion of the Underprivileged
“Why are you talking in a British accent ?” When I was in the 5th grade, I was suddenly asked this question. At first, I confused as to why I would be asked this. I was most certainly speaking American English just as plainly as one would hear anyone speak in the northeastern United States. I asked my classmate what he meant by “British accent,” although I was sure I already knew what it meant. He was implying that because I am a minority, as opposed to being white, I could not be well spoken let alone educated. It was one thing when I was underestimated by people of a different ethnicity, but it was particularly disheartening since he was a fellow Hispanic. He was trying to say that because I am not white, I am therefore not educated. In his eyes, the only way to be educated was through the color of my skin. As if the only criteria that qualified being educated was being white, implying that the two terms were interchangeable and synonymous with each other. That level of ignorance and prejudice truly opened my eyes to the society we live in today, where we are taught self-hate and are criticized for the things that make us unique. I was terrified of that dangerous mindset and, although it was disturbing, that clash of ideologies gave me greater insight into my future prospects. I would not let my self-worth be defined by the misconceptions of the weak-willed, who would allow these stigmas reign with unrivaled deference. Even so, I could not find myself feeling any malice or ill will towards this boy. He like many others, fell victim to a lack of self-regard, belittling others due to lack of their own self-esteem and shortcomings.
“Stop acting white,” he said as if to clarify, further justifying my beliefs. I later found out that his bigoted views are clearly shared amongst many, as this was not the last time I heard a similar sentiment. People often assume that my culture and socioeconomic background tether me to racial stigmas. I am perceived as “ghetto”, “uneducated”, and “inarticulate”, simply because of where I come from.
Once I became cognizant of my situation, I began to resent the overarching stigmas that set limitations on my success. As a child, I was always taught to be proud of my heritage, but I was disappointed to discover that others viewed it as a hindrance to my education. It was upon this realization that the fanciful idealism of childhood, was shattered. I grew to be cynical about humanities fixed views. I made it my mission to become the aberration that would not only supersede, but prevail societal stereotypes. Education would be the vessel in which I overcame this societal mandate.
Through the accumulation of knowledge, I was able to edify myself to the point at which failure was no longer an option. This, in turn, has given me the drive and determination to overcome any obstacle and or barriers that attempt to deter me from accomplishing my goals. Education would give me access to a world of limitless possibilities. No longer, would I be restrained by the false barriers and platitudes of those who would condescend me?
The more experienced I become, the more I realize that life is a continuous learning process and, that the quest for education is a lifelong journey. I firmly believe in the power of education. It is my personal mantra that if armed with the proper knowledge we are capable of achieving any goal we can imagine, and or reach any level in society that we dare to aspire, despite the expectations of others. I would not have come to this realization, if not, for the boy in 5th grade, who asked me, to “stop acting white”.
Joining GFR and Feelings of Doubt
I remember just how excited I was when I got the email. “Congratulations you have selected you to become a probationary member of SUNY Geneseo First Response. Welcome to GFR!” I was in utter shock. 135 applicants and I was one on the 13 to make the cut. Me a lowly freshman. There are people who apply every semester until their senior year and never get the opportunity. Somehow I got in. I was practically skipping. It may not have been the most prudent thing to do, but I wanted to tell the world. I was really excited. I told my RA “I got into GFR”. His response was “I love eating there”. I was so confused. My first thought was we don’t serve food. In my excitement, I completely forgot the restaurant existed. I clarified “Not Geneseo Family Restaurant. Geneseo First Response.” We laughed it about for a while. Then he congratulated me. I told all my friends I got in and they were all happy for me including the ones who didn’t get in themselves.
I felt I was on top of the world. Things were great. However, I found myself relating to Chipman’s The Power of Realistic Expectations “Think about starting a new job. You’re trying to figure out the landscape. It was a really competitive search. You feel fortunate to have gotten the job, but then you’re really worried about whether you’re going to fit in. What happens if you stumble? We all make mistakes on the job” I realized the achievement gap is a mental battle more than anything else. Like in most of Geneseo I find myself an outlier in GFR. Not many people look like me. In fact, I am the only Hispanic male in the organization. I began to feel doubt in my abilities. I’ve reached my goal of getting in, but what about fitting in? Getting in is only half the battle. How do I prove my worth? What if I mess up? If I do I reflect badly on more than just myself. I know it may be irrational, but what if I’m just a test run. Could I harm someone else’s chances of getting in? These were all thoughts circulating in my mind.
There is no need to feel uneasy. The thing that no one tells you when you stand out is that it doesn’t necessarily paint a target on your back. Much of what you may fear is only in your mind. As I took more shifts and got to know everyone a bit better my fears dissipated. My mentor is super supportive and I get along with just about everyone.
From High School to College
Something that I heard a lot about college during high school was how much different classes are. Upon entering college I had come to expect to be furiously writing down everything my professors said, and reading textbooks for hours on end. Luckily, that has turned out not to be true, by and large classes are still very similar to that of high school. Granted, there are still a lot of notes to take, and there’s much less in class socializing, but most class periods feel very much the same. Although, I will say that having classes scattered throughout the day, unevenly throughout the week has taken a while to get used to. Instead of having just seven straight hours of class, classes may sometimes have hours in between. The one thing that stands out in my mind as living up to the ‘hype’ is that no one cares what you do or if you even go to class. That, combined with being expected to manage your time and homework effectively on your own is very different. Sure, in high school we were expected to do our homework and manage time effectively, but that was usually for only a few days in advance. Now, there is less homework, but we’re still expected to understand the material as well as if there was. I’m currently enrolled in art history, a class that has no homework, and no textbook reading. Final grades are only determined by three tests throughout the semester and that’s it. If we as students had that kind of schedule in high school, I believe that many of us would be unable to handle it. As it goes know, this added responsibility is something else we have to deal with, weather we want to or not. In that sense, that sounds like very good practice for the real world, sometimes we have to deal with things we’d rather not. Other times (all the time) we’re expected to manage time effectively, because failure to do so can have grave consequences.
Reflecting on the Blogging Process
When I first entered my INTD 105 class, I was apprehensive towards the blogging requirement that Dr. McCoy assigned. When we were told that we would have to write ten posts without a set deadline or a prompt, I was presented with risk. I was unsure of how this process would turn out. Although after reflecting on it, I have recognized the rewards that have arisen from this task.
Beginning the blogging process made me nervous because I did not know where to begin. I had never written a blog before and did not how to format it. Taking the writing advice of Beth, I decided to consider my academic standing and write about coming to college as an undeclared student in my post “The Positives of Being Undeclared.” As stated in Geneseo’s Mission Statement, the college “community works together to advance knowledge.” This took place in the form of feedback from my professor on my posts. Based on the feedback that I received for my first post; I needed to learn to connect my writing to textual evidence and fix grammatical errors.
Practice Makes Perfect
Rob Urstein’s quote, “intelligence, rather than being a fixed trait, is something that grows over time and can be developed with effort” from Ian Chipman’s article “Realistic Expectations” has been the theme for me as I worked through this course. Without sounding too full of myself, I usually pick up on things quickly. However, this class was totally different because the writing process takes time and I wasn’t ready for it. I went into the class with very little training and still expected to go from zero to one hundred without much work. In turn, I got frustrated and started making excuses when I wasn’t making the progress that I had hoped for. Excuses such as “it’s hard to balance everything”, “I am not interested in this class”, “I have better things to focus on”, “I will never need this ever in life”. When I got my final grade back for the “Bloodchild” essay I was not pleased. I thought I had done a good job, granted the grade was not horrible but I thought I has earned a better grade. The comments that were left were problems that I thought that I had fixed. I tried to rewrite the essay to the best of my ability and I really tried to make improvements, but nothing was working. On top of that, the in-class activity that we were doing was making me even more frustrated. I was ready to give up. I was putting the “effort” in that Urstein talked about so why wasn’t I getting better?
I have played sports my whole life and practice has always made perfect. I always enjoyed improving the way that I played. The feeling of achievement that I had after I mastered something that my coaches had told me that I needed to work on was amazing. Although I would still get frustrated that I was not getting the hang of it right away, I still worked hard at it. Why was it so different when it came to school? I understand that school is very different from sports, but the concept of growth is still the same. So, I compared my struggle the writing process to my development in sports.
My softball coach once said to our team, “once a coach stops yelling at you, they have given up on you”. She meant this as if coaches are hard on you, they see potential and believe that you are capable of so much more. My coach (Dr. McCoy) recommended things that I could do differently to improve my writing. These recommendations were not meant to hurt me, but they were left to help me. Dr. McCoy saw potential in me which is why she left those comments. Although she did not yell at me, Dr. McCoy believes in me and therefore was hard on my writing and left constructive criticism with the hope that I will improve.
Through all my frustration that I have been feeling, Urstein’s concept can also be directly related to real life situations—not just sports. I have three more years of school, so I know for a fact that I will encounter other classes like this one that frustrate me and that I won’t want to take. In the real world too even after college, I will have tasks at work that frustrate me that I’ll have to work harder than others to master them. When I start a family, being a mom is hard and it takes a while to get the hang of. But that’s something that I can’t just get frustrated with and quit. My comparison of Urstein’s quote to sports and life helped me to understand that it takes multiple tries to get the hang of something. It requires both time AND effort.
A Second Chance
Everyone deserves a chance to fix their mistakes. Most professors aren’t generous enough to give students another shot. Luckily, Beth allowed our class to submit our Bloodchild essay draft to be edited and revised by her before we submitted the final product. Continue reading “A Second Chance”
Procrastination
Looking through the abundance of blog posts swarming the site right now I can tell we are all struggling with the dreaded ‘P’ word. Something that haunts not just college students but just about everybody. The concept of procrastination intrigued me as I scrolled through all of the posts created today, the last possible day. We had an entire semester to post just ten times yet most of us waited until now, including myself. Why? With this, I decided to do some research on procrastination.
Researching the topic I found an article titled “Why Wait? The Science Behind Procrastination” by Eric Jaffe. Jaffe explains that procrastination “goes back to ancient civilizations”. I learned that there are actually different types of procrastinators. Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University says “while everybody may procrastinate, not everyone is a procrastinator.” There 20% of people are classified as chronic procrastinators. He relates the matter to telling a person considered a chronic procrastinator “to just do their work is like telling a depressed person to just cheer up.”
There is actually a neuropsychological factor to procrastination. Laura Rabin of Brooklyn College says that there might actually be a connection between the frontal system of the brain and procrastinating work. The frontal parts of the brain are “involved in a number of processes that overlap with self-regulation. These behaviors — problem-solving, planning, self-control, and the like — fall under the domain of executive functioning.” To test this 212 students were collected and assessed on procrastination and then on the above skills. It in fact correlated, students who tend to procrastinate also had problems with the behaviors caused by the frontal brain. Though there could be other factors link, they believe that this could be a cause of procrastination.
Procrastination is very common on the college campus, but by reading this article I can definitely look at the topic with fresh eyes. It is wired in us to procrastinate. The article also gives suggestions to people prone to procrastinate such as chopping up work in to pieces in order to efficiently get it done over time. This was also a technique that we discussed in class. Furthering my knowledge on this subject will definitely benefit me in my future work ethic.
The Chipman/Urstein Article
A significant portion of our class recently has been the discussion of the Chipman/Urstein article and the revision of the academic probation letter. While revising the letter I have noticed a change from group to group of the overall psychology of the letter. Because everyone has their own way to phase things, and this letter is largely concerned with word choice, it can be hard to revise. That said, I believe that sometimes we get too caught up in the psychology of word choice; sometimes is simply doesn’t matter, or it doesn’t carry as much weight as we expect it to. After having spent significant time with multiple versions of the letter I believe that the changes we made were in our own benefit rather than anyone else. I suspect that if everyone individually were given slightly different iterations of the letter their revisions would all turn out slightly different. If we redistributed those revised letters throughout the class and had to re revise those, I suspect that by and large the newly revised letters would be very similar in word choice and overall psychology to everyone’s original revision. I also suspect that this exercise is done every year and that every group comes up with their own unique letter. Soon we have hundreds of letters that all attempt to share the same message with slightly different word choice. Which letters are right? Which are wrong and need further revising? It’s hard to tell, and everyone is likely biased in their own way. In that way, as Urstein makes an argument for changing the psychology of the letter, I believe that everyone will interpret it slightly different, regardless of how its phrased. In that way, the revision process is never actually finished. It just stops moving.