Your First Semester:

• Tell us how you have grown from the beginning of the semester to now. During my first semester at college, I have grown a lot. When I first started college, I was so nervous about everything and thought I would make so many mistakes. I was scared about leaving home and that made me not like being here at first, but I have grown to be okay with not seeing my family every week. Moreover, I have grown from the beginning of the semester to now because I am now okay with not seeing my family as much and I am less nervous whenever I am doing anything at college. 

• What were your expectations for this year? Did this semester’s experiences meet your expectations? Explain. My expectations for my first year of college was to make friends and learn new things in my classes. This semester I have made new friends and I learn something new in almost every class I have, so my expectations have been met. My first semester at college has given me a lot of perspective and new experiences. 

• What is something you wish you knew 14 weeks ago? When I first started college, I was a nervous wreck about everything. Something I wish I knew fourteen weeks ago was that everything will work out eventually and all I can do is try my best and put my best foot forward. I was very stressed about my grades and all the work I had to do when I first began, so I wish I would have known that stressing about things would just make my anxiety about the work worse. 

Study Habits:

• How much time do you spend studying for each class now vs. at the beginning of the semester? In the beginning of the semester, I did not spend much time studying because the work was easy, and I did not need to. As the semester progressed, I realized that I have to study for everything if I want to remember it and get a good grade. Now I spend at least an hour or two studying for my classes whenever I need to. Next semester I plan on studying even more than I am now to ensure that I know the material for my classes. 

• How have your study habits changed? My study habits have not changed from the beginning of the semester to now. What works best for me when studying is, reading over the material many times and doing practice exercises. I have been using those study habits since the beginning of the semester and I still use them now. 

• Tell us about a resource that you have used/learned about this semester that will assist you next semester. During this semester, I have learned about many different resources that are offered here at ODU. Some of these resources are tutoring, the writing center, and the monarch one search. Out of those resources, I have only utilized the monarch one search whenever I had to find a credible source. Next semester, I plan on using more of my resources if need be. 

• What study habits/techniques will you use going into next semester? Some study habits I use are rereading my material many times, making quizlets, and doing practice exercises. Next semester, I will be using all of those study habits to ensure I stay on top of my work. Those study habits are what works best for me, and I plan on using them a lot more next semester. 

Health Professions Learning Community:

• This semester you were enrolled in at least SOC 201S, and HLTH 101. Many of you were also enrolled in CHEM 105N and CHEM 106N, and some of you were enrolled in HIST 104H with Professor White.
  • On the surface these classes do not appear to be connected; however, this semester each professor was intentional about drawing connections between content, and subjects discussed. Discuss the ways in which these courses are tied together. This semester I took SOC 201S, HLTH 101, CHEM 105N, CHEM 106N, and HIST 104H. I can connect my sociology class to my history class because some of the things I learned in sociology class, we also talked about in my history class. There were many times when my history professor was going over some material and I realized I had heard the same thing in my sociology class. Although I can connect those two classes together, I cannot connect them to my health 101 class or my chemistry classes. 

Parallel Plan:

1. This semester we had presentations from different majors in the College of Health Sciences as well as from different majors on campus. This was to give you an idea for possible parallel majors to your current intended major. 

• Which two other majors would you be most interested in? Why? The major I choose is nursing, but there are some other majors I am interested in too. Two other majors I am interested in are public health and recreational therapy. I am interested in those two majors because they seem like something I would like to do in the future. I know for a fact that I want to do something involving health sciences, so those two majors seem like good options if nursing does not work out. 

• What benefit is there to having a parallel plan (or two) in place? A parallel plan is a plan that is something the one can fall back on if they are not successful in the major, they choose. Having a parallel plan is very beneficial and smart to have. The benefit of having a parallel plan is that if one is not doing well in their current major or just wants to change their major, they will already have a plan, another major in mind, and also will have probably taken some of the courses they need for their parallel plan, so they can keep advancing in their college journey. 

• How could one or both of these two majors benefit your current intended major? Both of those majors could benefit my current intended major. They could benefit my current major because they revolve around the same aspects as nursing. Even though those two majors and my current major are different, they are still in the health sciences field and can connect to nursing.