My first semester of my first year at Glendon College is soon coming to an end with only two papers and one final exam left to write. As I reflect back on the semester, I recall telling myself at least once a week that I wanted to drop out of school, followed by many breakdowns, crying fits and calling defeat. The past few months, haven’t been at all easy for me, I have thought many times I wasn’t intelligent enough to be in university, I was disappointed with some of the grades I received and I was constantly engulfed in a swarm of stress. Despite all these tough times, I have had many good one’s as well, I have made new friends which are now integral to my everyday life and I have enhanced my knowledge to a new degree. A range of different and useful topics have been discussed since the start of Pathways to lifelong learning, some of which I found to be of particular help. The college expectations which we learned towards the beginning of the course was especially helpful to learning how to become a critical thinker, something that was not very touched upon throughout my time in high school. I now use Bloom’s Taxonomy when beginning to prepare for an important paper or presentation. In addition to the first chapter, I had also found great help in the second chapter on the skills needed to succeed in school. In the past, I used rehearsal as my main strategy to memorize for any upcoming tests or exams, however that often resulted in either retrieval failure or ineffective encoding. I now use chunking and elaboration as my main strategies to studying as I find it most effective when studying and retrieving information, especially when I am needing to memorize and learn a big amount of material. Now that I have completed Pathways to lifelong learning, I have come to realize that the extreme stress I endured as mentioned earlier was due to my poor time management skills as well as my poor stress management. I found that I was often leaving assignments to the last minute, the amount of times which I went to the gym decreased from most days of the week to about twice a week or less, I no longer was eating healthy and I did not give myself the free time which was needed. I now recognize that my mental health
“You haven't done so well with passing classes and that’s an issue, you have a decision to make, you can either stay at lakewood and not graduate on time, or you can move to an alternative school to make up the credits you need.” The words that no high school student want to hear. As a high school student, school was not my best interest. Yes, i can say that i was interested and determined to get done with my high school year and go to college and continue to persuade my dream in either becoming a cosmetologist or become in the culinary fields, but that didn’t go as planned. As the days go by everything becomes a challenge, School work gets harder along with the classes, also understanding everything that you learn even gets harder. Most people
Walking into the doors of Delaware County Community College the 1st day of my freshman year, I did not think I would be where I’m at now. I was so cocky towards school, thinking I could slide through college classes just as easy like I did with highschool, Boy, I was wrong. I started skipping classes, not turning in my work on time, and honestly not giving school the best of my ability. Even out of school I was off course, I got my licence right at the beginning of the semester so I was out until 12 every night, sometimes even later. Most of those nights, I didn't even sleep at home. The fact I wasn’t a child anymore and I was in college, I wanted freedom without the responsibility. I actually took INT during my first semester but I didn't take it seriously.
Now I have anxiety and I’m worried, because I’m failing 3 out of 4 classes. I didn’t notice until all of this went down, in all honesty. So… is there a step after exhaustion? Is there a step after this? Is there a step above being exhausted? A step between being exhausted and collapsing? There must be. If there is, that’s where I am. It gets to the point of where my anxiety is so high that I can’t even focus enough to do my work. So now my grades will sink even more. I don’t want to be held back. I had plans to graduate May of 2020, I had plans to go to college at UCLA, or even NYU, maybe Ithaca! Those are all lost now, aren’t they. Who knew something as trivial as skipping could cause what feels like my whole life collapsing. As I said before: skipping is wrong. Don’t do it. Especially if you are fragile in every aspect of your being. If you skip then, your whole life may collapse. In the end, I do feel like next year, whether I’m in 9th grade still, or 10th, I’m cutting back on the extracurriculars. I piled on so much more than I can handle. Skipping is bad, but so is not having a hold on yourself. Skipping just made everything topple over. For your transcript’s sake, don’t
To begin with, over these past months I have been going through an eye opening phase of my life. My life had, and currently has since I am still in this phase of what could be described as self-awareness, a wrong base. My values and way of thinking were shallow and without purpose. Thanks to my teachers, mentors, reading and analyzing I have found the importance of a strong base, but not just in being smart or talented, in being honest, having integrity, never giving up, defining and developing the values that will help me shape my life. Washing College is part of a dying breed in universities, while most
There were several times in which I felt like it would be easier to give up, but I knew I needed to get my diploma. The odds were against me . . . “you’re not going to graduate, you’re never going to do anything with your life,” my father would say, when we’d get into a disagreement. As much as I despised such words; eventually, I welcomed them with open arms. They sparked a motivation in me that I never knew I held before. I couldn’t wait to show him and everyone else who had ever doubted me, that I would
A teacher is always an example, pacemaker and a paradigm for his students particularly for the whole society in general; therefore a teacher must be protected in the best way by following a code practice. For me being a teacher is absolutely a fantastic opportunity in teaching field which compel me to be an idol especially for students, therefore I must not discriminate or abuse (physical or mentally), respect them, having a course planning from before, and dress properly as a gentle man.
propose ways in which lifelong learning in personal and professional development contexts could be encouraged.
“Save to the hard drive” my inspirational psychology instructor always tells his classes. He wants us to remember things for the long haul. In middle school I was the type of student who could quickly cram before a test and still pass it with flying colors. Unfortunately, this crammed knowledge was never retained. When I went to high school I abruptly learned that my original study habits would not suffice. The high school years that followed caused me to learn that the best way to be successful was to build upon all the information I have gathered over the years.
Being accepted at XXXXX University was a dream come true; I arrived ready to learn and experience as much as I could. However, I found it difficult to adjust to life on my own as a college student. After I had just began to settle into my courses, a series of personal relationships ended and caused turmoil in my private life. I became depressed and lost all motivation. Confined to my room
The part that I found most interesting about this article was the fact that textbooks and teachers practically promote a study strategy which does not benefit students in the long run. This study strategy is overlearning, which I, and I’m sure most students do often. I chose this article because we recently went over the knowing mind which focuses on memory, which is the retention of information over time. This specific article has to do with the retention of information, pertaining to school and studying. In The Knowing Mind chapter and the midterm reflection, there were several videos about effective study strategies and ways to improve this retention of information in the long run rather than simply trying to memorize it. Some strategies
The past few years, I've been unhappy and felt complacent because I have yet to accomplish any of my goals. I envisioned that I would have successfully graduated college by age 22. In the fall of 2015, I planned to continue my education. Unfortunately, my mother's drug and alcohol use took its toll on our family which led to my parent's separation. My father returned to his home state to care for my disabled brother, and I no longer had a place to call 'home'. It was the most difficult period of my adult life. It is not my intention to use family issues as an excuse for my mistakes, most college students face obstacles and overcome hurdles to earn their degrees. However, at the time, I avoided processing my emotions and dealing with stress
My second semester of freshman was a case of burning brightly, too fast. Determined to redeem myself from a unsuccesful first semester, I took 5 classes and was accepted into a program which was set to be a huge time commitment. I also continued working my part time job throughout this time period. I began incredibly strong and blew myself away at how capable I really was. I wasn’t the same person I was first semester, but I also wasn’t the person I needed to be second semester. Though I had learned much in my time at the college thus far, I quickly became overwhelmed and found myself stubbornly sticking to my commitments despite warnings from my advisors. The moment I began not living up to the standard that I had set for myself second
When I started the 2015 Fall semester things were going swell I was very excited to start college and to start learning.I was very much more interested in figuring out what would be the best major for me to select.Going to college was something I wanted to do because I felt like it was the best option for me to find a career and a job I would love doing.While attending classes my mom started dealing with injuries and started experiencing pain with her right knee.I soon learned that bad knees, runs in my family and she has been dealing with it for some time now.Going to school during that time wasn't hard due to the fact she was still working and able to walk around by herself.But as soon as the semester was over I started to consider going to school. I wondered if school was for me at one point and time. So I talked to my old high school guidance counselor and talked about how I need to buckle up and get on track to success.Knowing that school is very important I decided to focus completely on school and nothing else.
Sitting in class for the first time, it was half of what I expected. I expected to sit by people I didn’t know, learn about old things in new lights, and writing a lot of papers. What I didn’t expect was me hating college. I am not as creative as some teaches would like, but that isn’t my personality, and I dint want it to be either. I fully expected college to try and morph me into a perfect little student that I knew I wasn’t. College so far to me hasn’t been fun and I will treat it like Wal-Mart. When I say that, I mean that I will get in and get out as fast as possible. If I pick up stuff along the way then alright, but if I don’t, then it won’t kill me.
A month before I started high school, things changed. He died. My grandfather died, not only did I lose support, I lost my most fervent connection to knowledge and my only real friend. I was lost, depressed and made the purposeful effort to secluded myself. I spent most of my time skipping classes with friends or going home to be alone in my room. For several long years I surrounded myself with people who would rather get high than do anything else. I became lethargic, and didn’t care about the future I was setting myself up for. The stars in my life were gone. When my senior year came around I couldn’t get myself out of the rut I had become so familiar with and wasn’t ready to graduate. Instead of continuing, I quit.