1. Transition to College
2. What did you expect college would be like 14 weeks ago? 

14 weeks ago, I honestly had no clue what to expect. Since I graduated in 2019, I was not used to the online learning, so that was my biggest uncertainty. Another thing I figured was that it was going to be a lot of school work and studying, which granted it was, but not as much as I thought I would have. I had about four all-nighters studying, but those I accredit to my bad habit of procrastination. Procrastination got worse as the semester went by, however I always found a way to get my work in and am working at my procrastination tackling skills (example: doing this assignment on Sunday, instead of Monday night). 

1. What is something you wish you knew 14 weeks ago? 

Tiktok is not that important, it will be there later – stop procrastinating. Another thing is that professors are willing to help you if you need it, and it’s ok to ask for help. They genuinely want to see you succeed! I always have a hard time reaching out and asking others for help, and the first couple of times it was scary, but my professors were all so helpful. Also, to pay attention to the schedules so you don’t realize last minute you have something due soon. 

1. What is a resource or activity you have found helpful this semester? 

This isn’t much of a advertised resource, but it helped for me – group chats! We have two big sociology group chats, but since we all have typically the same classes, we all keep each other updated on things that are about to be due, ask questions for clarification, or post study guides or google docs to study. 

1. What is a resource or activity you have found unhelpful this semester?

There haven’t exactly been any that were completely unhelpful, but there were some that I simply did not utilize like the library or tutors. I did not utilize the library due to the fact that I commute to school and have one closer to home. As to the tutoring offered by ODU, I had an overall pretty good grasp on all of my classes and the material. 

1. Name something you have learned this semester that will assist you next semester? 

Youtube is a savior! Whenever I didn’t understand something, I would type it in on Youtube and watch videos about that topic to help me. It ended up really benefiting me and my grade, especially when I was confused about things like moles or how to balance chemical equations. 

2. Study Habits
   1. A. How much time do you spend studying for each class now vs. at the beginning of the semester? 

Now I spend on average about 2-3 hours per class per week (with the exception of my Health 101 class that doesn’t require that much time). This ensures I have a good, set amount of time to go over the materials and really ensure that I understand them. In the beginning of the semester, I was only studying about 1-2 hours per class per week, and after a while realized I need to study more. There wasn’t any dip in grades, however I was still questioning myself while doing assignments and figured it wouldn’t hurt to study more – and it didn’t. 

• How have your study habits changes?

They have pretty much stayed the same, now just longer with the addition of going to youtube to learn more about topics I have questions on. Making myself study guides and very detailed and appealing notes have been my main factors of success throughout the semester. I still study at night better, because I will tell myself “ok, I can’t go to sleep until I fully understand this” and then work till I get it, and reward myself with sleep. Another helpful thing to me is changing up scenery. This year I went to Starbucks, Cure, and other places around Smithfield to get out of the house and study. This helps me because I say “ok, now that I’m out I need to get all of this done so I can go home, otherwise I will have wasted a trip”

• What specific study techniques do you think work best for you?  How do these vary from class to class?

For Health 101, I just do the assignments or review my notes on what we have talked about over zoom. In my English class, I do basically the same as Health, but watch the videos and make little study guides so I can keep track of what I’m doing. In my harder classes, I take very diligent notes. Chemistry, Chem Lab, and Sociology were full of notes and handmade study guides. Statistics consisted of taking notes and then going online and finding practice problems and doing those till I have mastered the subject. 

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.

1. 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.

            Of course, I saw this most in my chemistry online asynchronous class connecting with my chemistry lab class. In chemistry lab, we would primarily do experiments regarding things we were learning in lecture, which really helped me associate the things I learned at home online to things I was doing in person during lab. This really assisted me on tests, as I was able to think “ok, what during lab had me doing this specific skill”, while during experiments I was thinking “what did I learn that can be put to use in this lab”. The only other classes I had in connection with the learning community were my Health 101 and Sociology courses. In health, we would talk a lot about sociology and how the class as a whole is going. 

• This semester we provided events (Health Chats) for you to hear from health professionals from ODU. Which Health Chat was most beneficial for you as a student, and why?

While I didn’t attend an event scheduled outside of class due to time constraints conflicting with my personal schedule, the most beneficial health talk during the Health 101 class to me was the one about nursing. It was really informative and gave me a good insight to the nursing program, which I intend to apply to, and gave me views on what nursing will be like.