5I Job Hunting Downtown

My roommate has been trying to head to downtown to go job hunting. So this past Tuesday we made that happen! I just went along for the ride so she did not have to go by herself. He headed towards Morrill Hall 10 minutes before 7 to catch the 7pm shuttle headed to Union Station. We asked the driver he could drop us off downtown considering he was driving through it in order to get to the train station. So we were off! Finally arriving in downtown we were dropped off and the job hunting started! We stopped at a pizza place, then made our way passing Yale University to other restaurants and Starbucks. We made sure we stopped at every local restaurant or place possible because she is dying to get a job.

After a couple of hours of walking up and down New Haven we finally figured it was time to go back to our dorm because most of the places you had to apply online so it no use to try and hit any other place. So now we were thinking how are we getting back home? We figured we would take the public transportation to get back. So we asked around to see what bus would take us back to school and we found out it was bus B. We were pointed towards our stop and got there on time! 

The bus had just pulled up and people were getting on. Lucky me I had forgotten my bus pass back in the room so we had to search for change because I only had a dollar. And it's a $1.35 to get on the bus. We asked around and this intoxicated man, but very generous had 30 cents to lend me and he said just ask the bus driver if it was okay that I was 5 cents short. Thank god the bus driver was so kind and let on the bus! We finally were on our way home around 9pm. 

Since we were basically the last stop we sat and talked until we arrived at SCSU. It was definitely successful trip downtown and will be making more trips to do a little shopping for myself for sure!

5V The Art of Learning Everyday

We all know that we learn something new everyday. Doesn't matter what is it may, how to cook, how to work in a job, and so on. This week the word agency is definitely something that our inquiry class has done. When you hear of the word agency, I'm sure you think of a business. Well let's define it first. Agency means a business or organization that provides a particular service typically one that involves organizing transactions between two parties. I think of my inquiry class as a business and my classmates and I as the agents. We all participate in class and bring in new information that may aid one another. We are there to support one another in our first year experience at SCSU and combine our ideas to make it one. The class is a business that we keep together and slowly create a structure to further our career paths. For example, this week we read articles and poured the main ideas or strategies that may help one of our classmates in their studies. Building this foundation helps all us become one.

This week in my social issues class we have been learning about different strategies of defining. For example, there is ostensive definitions meaning when you actually point at something to show what the word means. If I say what does a chair mean, someone could point to one and that would be ostensive definition. There also is enumerative definition, which is defining by providing specific examples of what the word refers to. For example, Actor means Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Nicholas Cage, etc... There are other ways of defining words, but these two were the ones of the top of my head!

Hope you learned a new way to define words after reading this!

5B My life in a week!

As the time study came into an end, it made me realize how much time I spend on certain things. Now that I am in college I definitely spend much more time on homework than I did in high school. I mean we obviously have to in order to pass your class and succeed in our academic paths, but for me I have a completely different outlook on the loads of homework we get. 

Adding up the hours I spent doing each habit/practice, my time study shows that I spent about 17 hours in class per week, 15 hours on homework this week, 8 hours napping, 6 hours eating, 12 hours working, 37 hours of actual sleep, 3 hours of bathing, 38 hours of socializing with family and friends and me time, and 5 hours of errands. Looking over this makes me realize how little sleep I get which is not good at all. Each person is supposed to get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. That adds up to 56 hours of sleep a week and I am only getting 37 hours of sleep, which is not good for my health at all. 

The amount of time I spent on my homework this week was low because I got most of my homework due for Monday and Tuesday done before the weekend. Since I do not have classes Friday I take advantage of that day as well when I let things slide a little bit this weekend because I went home. Looking at the amount of time I socialize is definitely not surprising to me. I am the type of person that LOVES to go out and enjoy myself and have a good time, but I can definitely say that I prioritize my work before I go out. Considering last week I did not have much homework I did not worry about getting some things done. I had the time to do them and planned when I was going to get them done so that always helps me out.

I believe I divot a lot of time to my studies because I always make sure I am on top of things even though my time study may not show it. It varies every week because the workload is different every week. For example, this up coming week I have a lab exam and an essay due on Wednesday (which happens to be my birthday). I am making time to get both things done in order to accomplish the things I need to for each class. I can surely say that the amount of time I put into my homework is a lot more than what it looks like now. 

One thing I definitely need to work on is getting more sleep. In some classes I have a hard time staying up because I go to sleep late or can't get sleep because everyone is so loud. I will have to make sure I go to bed earlier and hopefully will see a difference in my sleeping patterns and will take less naps than what I do now. The lack of sleep can definitely affect my studies and I do not want that to happen. What I take from this time study is how I need to separate my time and make time for more important things like sleep. Taking naps are fun, but definitely not all the time. With this I will change my bedtime and try and sleep earlier for my own good!

5A How I've Started & Where I'm Headed

Coming into college the workload I pictured is definitely the workload I have in all my classes. In high school I did care about my studies, but never really put all the effort I have into them. Now that I am in college it is a whole different game. Yes we have to stay on top of work, but also put in that EXTRA effort to do better and succeed. 

So far I believe that my successes in college has been great for the first quarter. I am on top of my work and make sure I get it done long time before it is due. I make sure I complete my homework with my best effort and also make sure I understand what I just have completed. When I first walked into my Microbiology lecture I thought it was going to be my hardest class that I have out of the rest. To be honest, I think that I have been exceeding my expectations especially in lab. In lab, I do understand everything we are doing and it sticks with me. Unlike in high school, I would do a lab and forget what we did or why we even did the lab. I haven't had any failures, but the only thing that concerns me is exams, midterms, and finals. When it comes to actual test taking, those skills are out of the window for me and I completely shut down. 

What I have learned about myself and the way I make time for my work and how I get it done is that if I am reading something or typing an essay it has to be DEAD silence. Some ways I make sure I get that silence is by going to the library. The library has definitely been a great resource that helps me get my work done. Also when getting my work done I always make a list of what I have to get done. For example, right now I made time to do one blog and my social issues homework so that later I only have to do the rest of my homework. I try and split up the workload so I don't have to do all of it once that can overwhelm some students and sometimes I do myself. By making a plan of when I am going to do what helps me keep track of what I am getting done and what I have left to do. I have always been a student that makes sure I get my work done, but now in college I make sure I also understand what I am doing because if I don't understand it and do it just to get it done there is no point of doing it in the first place.

Some methods from the readings this week that I am going to put to use for the rest of the semester is by telling a story about what I learned in class. In the article about note taking they advised to re-tell the lecture you just had, but in a story form. By doing this it will help you understand what you learned in lecture and make sure you did not miss any information. A small goal I want to set for myself is to use the writing center when I have essays due. My long term goal is to get better at writing and by making that small step to the writing center I feel that it will help me in the long run. Overall, I believe that I've been starting off my academics in a positive way and can't wait to continue them and learn more about myself.  

4B Inquiry Questions

This whole week we have been discussing how self-control, willpower and delayed gratification work. For me, all of these topics relate to one another. It is all about how you control your mindset and your patience. If you have patience you have delayed gratification. If you have control over your choices then you have self-control. If you have the motivation and mindset to get something done then you have willpower to do anything; you just have to figure out how to find that will power and put it to work. The real question is how do these help you with your futures?

How do these help us with our futures? Self-control, willpower, and delayed gratification are very important keys to our future. Without self-control you cannot really do anything. If you do not have the ability to control yourself how can you function on a regular bases? To me self-control is the most important factor out of the three. When you have self-control it leads to you having and finding that willpower to do something. Finding the motivation to do something can be hard at times, but never impossible. That willpower is somewhere you just have to learn where to find it. With delayed gratification, this will help you be patient with things that sometimes are hard to wait for. Sometimes we may get impatient and get up and leave, but if you have delayed gratification then it will make it a lot easier to get through your day as difficult as it may be. 

In the marshmallow test we discussed this week, all of this were a major key to the children being tested. They had to find the self-control and will power to not eat the marshmallow even though how delicious it may have looked. And that delayed gratification to be patient and wait for that next marshmallow. In the article, "Don't", says, 

"Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow—the “hot stimulus”—the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from “Sesame Street.” Their desire wasn’t defeated—it was merely forgotten"(3).

This states that the children tried to have that self-control and will power not to eat the marshmallow just by distracting themselves from it and it did work. They just forget about it until the adult came into the room in order to obtain that second prize. Just by this it states how I believe that self-control can be obtained, you just have to figure out how to make it happen. Overall, I believe that all of these three key factors are affected everyday in our daily lives and we learn day by day on how to control them to make them benefit us.