First Semester:

I believe I’ve grown as a person and a student since the beginning of the semester until now. Although I wish I had grown tremendously as a student, I don’t think I have yet. I still struggle with time management and procrastination. I feel as if my mental health has stopped me from doing what I know I can do, causing me to hold off work and essentially sleep from being so burned out rather than studying or doing homework. My expectations this year didn’t quite meet what I thought they would when coming into college. I knew there would be a lot of studying and homework, but the work is much harder than expected. I also didn’t think I would be struggling with what I wanted to do for college or what route I wanted to take for my future. I expected to always want to be here because I felt that way the majority of the semester, until now. I have been having thoughts about transferring or going back home because I feel like I should have picked what’s best for me and my family financially. I don’t think my expectations were met in that area. However, I am surprised by all the friends and connections I’ve made here. I truly didn’t see myself making true friendships so close coming into college. Looking back and thinking about 14 weeks ago to now, I wish I knew more about what I am supposed to be doing for my future nursing career and how independent I have to be as a college student and now adult. I also wish I had taken a step back and really thought about the easier and more affordable route for my next four years. I am enjoying my time here at ODU, but I wish it was direct admission to the nursing program because that is what’s holding me back from continuing my future at ODU. Because I have a learning disability as it is, I know I have to work ten times harder than the average student. It is already difficult now that we are in the first semester. I am only hoping to go forward and try my hardest.

Study Habits:

Since the beginning of the year, my study habits have improved. I now spend a little over 2 hours a day studying chemistry. In the beginning of the semester, I wouldn’t study chemistry at all. My other classes I don’t study for; I just do the homework that is assigned. A resource that I have learned about is studying and doing my work in the library. Studying and completing homework there in the library seems to be best for me and my academics. I know spending more time there next semester will help improve my grades and help with my procrastination. Another study technique I plan on using for my next semester is studying with groups of people and friends. I feel like it would benefit my memory of the subjects in numerous ways. I plan on going to the tutor center to improve my grades going into the next semester too.

Health Profession’s Learning Community:

This recent semester, I was enrolled in SOC 201S and CHEM 105N. These two courses were connected in ways, as both had a combination of history and science. Sociology can be defined as a scientific discipline relating to chemistry. I believe the professor’s intentional connections were used by using the history of science, which is important for multiple majors, including the nursing major.

Parallel Plan:

The two majors I would be most interested in after experiencing the presentations in the College of Health Sciences are nuclear medicine and speech pathology. Nuclear medicine works with chemistry, which I most struggle with, but the process of the job that we were shown seemed so intriguing to me. It was something I had never heard of before and felt so new. I don’t know many people with a nuclear medicine major, so I feel like I could be an asset to the career in a way. I like how it helps people in ways too, which is one of my main goals for my future career. I was also interested in speech pathology. Having a speech pathology major makes me feel as if I have a close connection with the patients and would be able to help in so many ways. The help that goes along with both of these majors is one of the many reasons why I would pick one of the two majors that I listed. There are so many benefits to having a parallel plan. Just like minoring in something, it’s always a good idea to have a plan when going into things, especially when it comes to your future career. When it comes to me personally, I have stated multiple times how I struggle with chemistry. You have to pass all your general education classes in order to get into the nursing program, and because chemistry is my main struggle, I am not obligated to pass the first go around. Knowing I have a backup plan or simply a minor in mind is helpful so that I don’t feel like I have to give up in college.