My First Semester
At the beginning of the semester, I didn’t know what to expect regarding my schedule, workload, the people I’d meet, etc. Throughout the semester, I got into a nice routine of working hard during the weekdays to enjoy time out with my friends and visit my family on the weekends. In this routine, I’d go to the library most nights to focus on work but eventually I moved to my dorm building’s study rooms in Owens because it was so much quieter there. I’ve met a good amount of new people, but focused mostly on the courseload which was a blessing and a curse. My grades have been fine throughout, but I didn’t make as many friends like I thought I would because of my prioritization. I stopped going out as much and buckled down on my assignments, but I also had a lot of time on my hands. Next semester, I will definitely be balancing this better.
My expectations for this year was honestly just to have a lot of work. I expected to be always busy with schoolwork and to have to face some hard decisions when it came to going out or staying in to study, which stayed true. Oftentimes, my friends would want to go out, but I’d have a big assignment due the next day that I hadn’t finished yet. Obviously I’d choose the assignment, but as the semester progressed, I knew to do these way ahead of time to ensure my schedule was clear to enjoy myself too.
Something I wish I knew 14 weeks ago was that these college professors would work with us and give us more grace than my high school teachers would, especially those tailored towards my major. The “Gen-Ed” teachers didn’t give out a lot of curves, but my Nursing or Health-related courses gave out A LOT of curves regarding exams and dropping lowest grades in the end.
Study Habits
At the beginning of the semester, I’d spend so much more time studying than I do now honestly. This is because I was so stressed out about the courseload in the beginning and eventually became more comfortable with the material and could manage it better. Due to pure adjustment, I was able to stop taking as many notes in classes like Sociology and Human Nature, but I studied more for Chemistry because of how rigorous Dr. Moloney’s exams were.
My study habits have switched from making flashcards on Quizlet to redoing homework problems, reviewing worksheets, color-coding notes, and memorizing things by associating them with silly terms. With different study groups, I gained better ways to study too, which was a great benefit from the LLC. We came up with funny acronyms or sayings to memorize Chemistry terms, which I know will definitely stick with me for life because of the memories associated with them.
I learned about the Writing Center this semester from my Human Nature Philosophy professor. I didn’t use it for my first semester, but I plan to next semester, especially since I’m taking a Writing course. The Philosophy course was very paper-heavy, and he suggested this to everyone, so I’m looking into using the Center to help me with my Final Paper for Human Nature.
Next semester, I will still be color-coding my notes and using sayings to help with memorization. The color-coding helped with grouping terms together under the same category, or “umbrella,” as well as those with similar properties in the sciences. Since I’m taking Microbiology next semester, this may help.
Health Professions Learning Community
In Sociology (SOC 201S) with Professor Lopez, he was consistently connecting our sociological perspectives to health methods and relevant medical news today. For one of our final projects, he assigned us an article about a study on health science students in Turkey then tested us on it regarding concepts in our course, which connected our majors and his teachings. In today’s Chemistry lecture (CHEM 105N) with Dr. Maloney, she actually discussed the concept of radioisotopes and such parallel with the major of nuclear medicine, explaining why they use the tools they do regarding the chemistry of it all the way down to how the atoms are interacting with each other.
Parallel Plan
Two of the majors I would be most interested in that have had speakers representing them this semester would be Nuclear Medicine and Recreational Therapy. I thought Nuclear Medicine was a very cool area to study and I actually gained more information on the program too since a close friend of mine got accepted into it this semester. She highlighted her path to getting there and showed me that a lot of the Pre-Requisites are the same for both majors too. I thought the idea of injecting radioactive drugs into a patient, especially those with other colors, and observing the areas they’re going to is interesting. With Recretional Therapy, I actually considered going into studying a form of therapy before I chose Nursing as my intended major. I thought the events they h
osted tailored towards the RT majors were fun and helpful, and I love the idea of working with patients in functional ways, especially to hone motor skills.
The benefit of having a parallel plan is to not get entirely set back if you did not make the intended program you were aiming for. This serves as a “Plan B” without completely being an alternate plan because your hopes don’t get crushed as much…Regardless, this helps you not be held back in any way while still achieving your goals somewhere in the same field.
Both of these majors benefit my intended major of nursing because all of these positions can wokr hand-in-hand together in different settings, like hospitals or clinics. If I were to minor in Recreational Therapy and still major in Nursing, some of the Pre-Requisites are the same which can accomplish both in a timely manner.