For my first semester of college, I am most excited about gaining college experience. I am excited about making potential life-long friends, working towards being accepted into ODU’s highly competitive nursing program. Also, I am excited to see what positive opportunities may come my way. Procrastination may be one of my biggest challenges. Often, I tend to wait until the last minute to get assignments done. During the summer I signed up for the Student Nurses Association here at ODU. So far there hasn’t been any information given from the group so it is difficult to know how much time I may need to spend on the organization. When the organization starts back up I plan to do my class assignments as early as possible so I’ll have time for future club activities. In high school, I was a member and Student Ambassador of Project Discovery. Project Discovery is a club that allows students to tour different colleges both in state and out of state. I plan to be involved in the Student Nurses Association this semester. By joining the club, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of what nurses do and I hope to be connected and involved in the school. 

My intended major is nursing. I chose this major because it is something I have been passionate about for years now. I think nursing is a good major/career choice for me because I have always liked the idea of helping people and I am also empathetic of people’s feelings. I volunteered at the riverside hospital about two years ago. During that time I helped out the nurses and nursing assistants by doing simple tasks so they could focus on patient care. In five years I see myself working in the hospital as a labor and delivery nurse. In 10 years when I have gained more experience, I hope to be a nurse-midwife.

The pace of the classes may be the biggest difference between high school and college. In high school, you take a class for the whole academic year while in college you are taking a class for one semester so there will be more information you have to learn in a short amount of time. In my opinion, there is a difference between studying and homework. Studying is planning out time to further go over topics that may have been covered in class to deepen your knowledge. Homework is assigned by the teacher and is required and usually graded. To further reiterate, studying is done willingly while homework is more of a requirement. For my sociology, chemistry, and history class I plan to spend three hours per week studying. I plan to spend two hours for both my online ethics class and introduction to health professions class. I plan to study in the living room area of my dorm. I am most likely to be distracted by my phone. I plan to avoid this distraction by keeping my phone away from me when I am studying. I study best in the evening times because it is usually calm and quiet. The technique I use for studying is to focus on one class assignment at a time. When I am done studying or doing the homework for one class I move on to the next.