On the cool, early morning of November 16th, myself and a group of my other pledge brothers spent 10 hours cleaning the nasty side streets of the ODU campus. We were doing this under the fraternity of Sigma Pi, which strives for helping the community. During this day, we cleaned from 42nd street, to 37th street. Cleaning up the empty alcohol cans, red solo cups, and other trash that was littering the streets. This helped the community not only physically, but also in a medical and health perspective as the trash that was littering the streets could cause people to start getting sick due to the bacteria that is spread during times of drinking. This promoted the use of teamwork and opened my eyes to the problem that has been happening around campus when it comes to trash and littering in general.

The fraternity Sigma Pi is a social fraternity that strives to not only boost the social aspect of the community in which they are a part of, but also help the community in different aspects of their everyday life. Sigma Pi does community service regularly and they also follow a philanthropy that promotes organ donation and men’s mental health through larger organizations. They address the cleanliness needs of the community such as littering and other issues that are within the community. 

While cleaning the streets may have changed the values or opinions of others, it didn’t really change anything for me. I’ve always been the person to help others in any way possible, it’s what I’ve always done and it’s what im accustomed to. When I was younger, I have received the Presidential Community Service Award, which is doing over 500 hours of community service. I’ve always been one to help others, and I think that it is good for the heart and soul to help others.

Previous to coming to Old Dominion, I went through a course to become EMT certified. Although I did not achieve the goal that I had set for myself, I was still very active within my community by volunteering as an EMT at my local fire department. This truly helped me grow into a better person and it made me realize that helping people for a living is what I was put on this earth to do. Both doing the community service and volunteering as an EMT grew my burning passion to help people for a living, which is why I am majoring in Pre-Medical in the Biology field. 

The community service that I had performed is not directly related to my intended major, but it was relative to the fact that it is directly and indirectly helping people. One major that it could directly relate to could be public health and also engineering as it could develop into an easier way to clean the streets, whether it be a device that allows a faster way or even getting more people to participate in cleaning the streets. As I’ve gone through this semester, I have come to the realization that I can do more than just one thing that has my interest in it. One major that could directly be related to this type of service would be biomedical engineering, which is what I am minoring in. So with that being said, yes I would pursue in a major that is directly related to this type of service.

Coming into college, I did not know what to expect; considering the fact that during high school a rarely studied and I still did well on tests and finals. When I came into college, I was not really studying all that much, which really showed in my grades at the beginning of the semester. Now that I am nearing the end of my first semester of college, I no longer have any free time as I take that “free time” to study for my exams and do my homework in my classes. I study for chemistry for roughly 20 hours a week at this point since I still have my final exam to take. Before taking the finals for my other classes, I was studying for about 12-15 hours a week for sociology and history. This has led to many different problems such as procrastination for this class and it has also affected my social life as I am always in the library and not hanging out with my friends. Since the beginning of the semester, my study habits have not really changed as I am doing the same things; studying in groups, rewriting my notes and so on and so forth. One thing that has changed is my ability to focus. Something that was brought to my attention is that I may have a learning disability as it is hard for me to focus on tasks, pay attention for long amounts of time, and studying in general is a difficult task for me. I have already made a doctors appointment for when I go home over Christmas break to get checked out. With this being said, I truly do not know what study techniques work for me as I struggle doing anything in relation to studying. It is a serious issue that I have been struggling with that I am finally ready to get help with.

When I first got to college, I truly did not know what to expect. I was thinking that it would be similar to high school, but I was in for a culture shock when I became exposed to every part of the campus and the society as a whole. When I first got here, I had no intentions of joining a fraternity, I had no clue what I was going to do with my time here, I had no clue on the amount of friends that I would make, and I had no clue that I would make such strong bonds with people that I literally call my brothers now. These past 14 weeks have been insane for me, I get initiated into my fraternity with 21 of the other amazing brothers of mine and I would not want it any other way. One resource that has truly been helpful for me during these last 14 weeks would be the fraternity that I joined. The guys in the fraternity have helped me so much with my transition to college it’s insane. They’ve helped me with not only classes, but also my time management skills and my social anxiety. They have truly broken me out of my shell and allowed me to grow into a better person in a whole. If I’m going to be honest, the one resource that I did not find helpful this semester would be the health professions learning community. I was thinking that people in the community would be more open about making new friends and helping others, which is what health professions is about. But I was wrong. The people in the community already came here in cliques and they weren’t really open to making new friends or helping others within the community. That is why I did not find it useful, I also have more friends and talk to more people that I don’t have a single class with which I find awkward considering there are 92 people in the community that I have classes with everyday. One thing that I wish I knew 14 weeks ago would be how to truly study and manage my time. I have struggled most of the semester in finding the key to be successful in those aspects. I feel that if I knew what I was doing prior to coming here, my GPA would not be struggling as badly as it is. One thing that I have learned this semester that will truly help me next semester would be having a stronger knowledge on how to manage my time. This wasn’t really taught to me, but I adjusted my own life to make time for everything that I was involved in, with the intent of being successful in those categories.