Mid-Semester Reflection | hlth101scamb002

Study habits
a. How much time do you spend studying for each class every week? I study for about 12-15 hours a week. I will normally study more if it is a topic that I feel like I am really struggling with. I prepare flashcards that are color coded and highlighted. I also try to teach some of my subjects to family members to see if I can really explain it.
i. Do you need to put more time into studying, and for which class or classes? I think I could study more for chemistry, because it is asynchronous. I think I should try to find more practice quizzes and do more of those than I normally do to see if I really understand the topic.
b. Where do you study? When I study, I typically go into our office room because it is the quietest room in the house. There have been times though when I studied in our living room, I just made sure that the tv was turned off.
i. Do you often find yourself distracted while studying? I am not usually
distracted when I study. The only time I have ever been distracted is when my dogs start barking because I have three and they can be quite loud. Normally when they stop, I can return right back to what I was doing. Other than this, my family knows to be quiet and I am not normally distracted.
ii. What could you do to remove these distractions? It can sometimes be hard to control when my dogs bark, but I could try to make sure all of the doors are closed to limit them from seeing things that cause them to bark. I could also put earbuds in and play some instrumental music to try to avoid hearing them.
c. What time of day do you study? I normally study in the afternoons or toward the evening. I have tried to study in the morning but I tend to be very slow moving in the morning, so I feel I benefit best from studying in the afternoon.
i. Do you feel focused and alert at this time? I feel that I am focused because I feel like afternoons and evenings are like my “work mode” so it seems like a good time to study for me. It is easier for me to study once I get started so by the afternoon and night since I’ve already been doing things, it is easier for me to just pick up my flashcards and study.
Learning style
a. What specific study techniques do you think work best for you? How do these vary from class to class? For all of my classes, I normally will look through my notes and highlight and use sticky notes. I feel like this can be helpful because after writing everything, I go back and read and highlight to get the information set in my head. After this, I normally make flashcards. I use colored pens in my notes, so when I
am writing something on my flashcards, I used the same colored pen so I can correlate with the colors. They do not vary too much from class to class, but in chemistry, I normally try to find practice problems to work out on my own.
b. What new study techniques have you tried this semester based on what you have learned about learning styles? This semester, our peer mentor was talking in class about how she used a white board to teach one of her family members, and if she couldn’t explain the topic she was trying to teach, she would go back and study that in her notes later on. I am currently having a white board shipped to my house to do this too, but before my sociology midterm, I taught certain key points
to one of my family members, and I think it helped engrain the information in my head a little bit more because not only was I memorizing what I needed, but I was able to explain it and better my understanding of the information, while teaching it to someone else.
Transition to college
a. Has college been what you expected? It has been a little bit of both I feel like. There have been things that I knew were going to happen but then some things were different than I had imagined them being.
i. In what way is your college experience different from what you expected? I think my college experience has been a lot different due to the pandemic. I was really excited to go to classes in person and be able to meet my professors in person and my classmates in person, but that has not really happened. I think that being online is very different and I feel it has maybe been a little more stressful in a way. I just feel that maybe if I had been able to be on campus and been able to meet people and be in person for lectures, it would have helped my anxiety out.
ii. What has surprised you about your experiences so far this semester? At first, before orientation, the first thing that surprised me was the living learning community. I had never heard of a living learning community so when I got an email about it and read about it, it was something I really wanted to do and it made me even more excited. During the semester, I think something that surprised me was the amount of studying. I was always one in high school who would study for everything, but I don’t think Ive ever had to spend this much time studying for classes.
b. If you live on campus: What has been your toughest challenge with moving away to
college? Easiest challenge to overcome?
c. OR If you commute to class: What is the toughest challenge with commuting to
campus? Easiest challenge to overcome? I think the toughest challenge to overcome was figuring out the right time to leave my house. I have my chemistry lab at 10:30am on Tuesdays and I have sociology in the morning, the same day until 9:15am. I was worried about the traffic and not being able to get there on time. The first two weeks, I had the lab back to back on Tuesday, so it was a good test to see what time was the best for leaving to get there on time. I also have band at 5pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, so it was interesting to learn what time I needed to leave to get there on time to beat the 5:00pm traffic. The easiest
challenge to overcome was figuring out who takes me. I cannot drive due to some personal reasons, but I was worried about who would take me to school. But, my mom is a stay at home mom and we are very close so until I can start driving, she was more than happy to help me out.
Connecting to campus
a. Name one problem or challenge you have encountered this semester, and which
resource(s) at ODU you have/can utilize to assist with this situation. One problem that I have had was getting really anxious and stressed. I normally get really nervous when things are different or new, so being new to college and with covid making everything online, I get really anxious about a lot of things. I was trying to look for a therapist in high school, but some of them were not the right fit for me, so I think I am going to call the counseling services at ODU when I get a chance
because I feel like I could really benefit from that. I might be able to get techniques to ease my anxiety so I don’t always feel so overwhelmed.
b. Is there a friend, roommate, professor, advisor, or group in the ODU community
who has helped you so far this semester? If so, how did they help you? In the learning community, someone reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to start a study group, so I am now in a study group for chemistry and we help each other out. Another student who is in all of my classes reached out to me and we have done a zoom a few times and ask questions to each other and try to help each other out when we do not understand something.
c. Have you attended an interest meeting for a club? Why did you decide to get
involved or not get involved? I have not joined a club, but I am in the marching band. Marching band is not a club, but it is a class. I joined this because I have played instruments since the fourth grade, so music has always been a big part of my life, and I did not want to lose that. It is really nice because it meets two times a week at night and I have met new people who aren’t necessarily majoring in health sciences, so it is nice to meet someone with different interests.