My First Fall Semester
- Tell us how you have grown from the beginning of the semester to now.
I have grown from the beginning of the semester to now academically, and I believe, socially. I have grown academically because I have learned what study methods have worked for me and have continued to use those methods for the rest of the semester, resulting in good grades. I have grown socially because I joined a student organization that has pushed me to be more out there, which I think is an important milestone for someone who is pretty shy and introverted like me.
- What were your expectations for this year? Did this semester’s experiences meet your expectations? Explain.
I expected this year to be stressful and difficult, mostly because it is my first year of college and college is a big change in an individual’s life. I expected college to have a different academic environment than high school, so that stressed me out as I was an okay student in high school: I got good grades, but never took studying seriously. I also expected college to be lonely since most of my close friends went to different colleges. Luckily, this semester’s experiences did not meet my pessimistic expectations because I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience this fall semester and have better expectations for the next semester.
- What is something you wish you knew 14 weeks ago?
Something I wish I knew 14 weeks ago is to learn how to keep some time for myself. Although it is fun being heavily involved in a student organization, constantly being around a sociable group of people can be draining and tiring. I need to remember that school is always my first priority and my mental health needs to have a healthy balance between my social and personal life.
Study Habits
- How much time do you spend studying for each class now vs. at the beginning of the semester?
I spend more time studying now than I did at the beginning of the semester. I used to barely study at all before the beginning of the semester, but now I definitely take the time I need to study depending on the class and information I am being tested on.
- How have your study habits changed?
Before I used to use study methods such as the Cornell and Pomodoro study method, but I learned those methods do not work the best for me since I can never remember information through Cornell and I always ended up awaiting breaks through the Pomodoro method. The method I think now works best for me is active recall because I am actively learning through this method which helps me retain and memorize information efficiently.
- Tell us about a resource that you have used/learned about this semester that will assist you next semester.
Most of the resources I used were from my class textbooks. For example, I would use the practice problems in the digital textbook to practice my skills and test my knowledge. I also used flashcard apps like Quizlet to make flashcards to memorize terms.
- What study habits/techniques will you use going into next semester?
Going into the next semester, I will definitely use the active recall technique to study. The active recall method focuses on the individual to remember the information they learned without looking at any notes.
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.
The ways that these courses are tied together is because they are each important to the careers that the students of the Learning Community strive to achieve. For example, chemistry is needed for a lot of nursing and dental hygiene students because it is a key science in their majors. Sociology is also important to health-related careers because most health professions require interaction with the public. Learning about social behavior through sociology allows students to gain a deeper understanding of people, which may help them in the future when they need to interact with patients of their own. Health 101 is connected as well because I would say it builds your social and professional skills up through the coursework and information on the healthcare field.
Parallel Plan
- 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?
Two other majors I would be most interested in are Psychology and Nursing because I am interested in getting a job in healthcare. I am interested in psychology because I think it is very interesting to learn about how the mind works. I am interested in nursing because I think it is somewhat similar to dental hygiene in a way where nurses and hygienists assist doctors and dentists. Nurses also help patients and work hands-on like hygienists, but go through less school of course.
- What benefit is there to having a parallel plan (or two) in place?
The benefit to having a parallel plan is if you realize your current major is not for you or you do not make it into the program, you can easily go to your backup plan that you have already considered so it will not be stressful and you won’t feel lost.
- How could one or both of these two majors benefit your current intended major?
Both of these majors could benefit my intended major because the coursework is somewhat similar to Dental Hygiene. If I were to change my major and graduate with a Psychology or Nursing degree, I could possibly still achieve a job in Dental Hygiene because most of the information we learn is similar–except for the actual dental care. It would not be as hard to learn dentistry with nursing or psychology knowledge than with engineering knowledge.