Study Habits 

As of right now, I’m doing well in my sociology, chemistry, literature and health professions classes. I feel as though those are the classes that I am doing the best in right now because those are the classes that I spend most of my time working on outside of class. Whether it be studying, reviewing material, or working ahead to try and put myself in a position where I don’t feel like I could possibly fall behind. Some of the classes I feel that I need assistance with are chemistry lab and ethics. Although the classes themselves are not challenging I feel that the way they are taught/conducted makes it really hard to be interested in doing anything more outside of class than what is required. Some of the changes that I’ve been making progress on in order to help include allotting time for the classes in my study schedule even if I don’t want to or I feel like I don’t really need to.

Transition to College

One of the main expectations I had for college is that I would make friends instantly and kind of be forced to step out of my shell. However, this expectation hasn’t really come to fruition due to the fact that I feel as if most people have already found their groups of people to hang out with (both in and out of class). One of the main ways that my college experience is different from what I expected is how hard it is to come back, the more I go home. Every time I go home, I feel like I should’ve just gone to a school closer to home, rather than one that is two hours away. The diversity on campus and the all-inclusivity was a big surprise to me this semester. I didn’t really expect to see so many different types of people on campus, which I love. I love how many different faces you can see just walking to class and how each one of those people have different cultural backgrounds and experiences. As a student who lives on campus, one of my toughest challenges with moving away from home is not being able to have my car (although I’m highly considering bringing it after Thanksgiving break). I hate the feeling of being stuck on campus (especially when there’s a good party at NSU lol). In contrast, I’d say one of the easiest challenges to overcome is sharing a room with another person. I don’t have any issues with my roommate and she’s very clean and organized which makes it much easier to get used to living with another person. 

 

Major 

One of the main things that I learned about my major that I kind of knew but didn’t understand the importance of is the oversaturation of people aspiring to pursue a career in nursing. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because we can never have too many nurses but it does just make the competitiveness of obtaining the major all the more intense. In regards to how I feel about my major, I feel more and more excited as we get further into the year and the work gets more rigorous because that is what I expected. Long hours, hard work, and lots and lots of coffee. 🙂 Although, I am very appreciative that the work isn’t too overwhelming just yet. Although I am very excited about pursuing my major, I think I would like to minor in psychology as well. It has always been an intriguing career path to me and if I wasn’t majoring in nursing, I’d definitely be majoring in psychology. I feel like it pertains to the field that I’m going into as well and can give me better insight into the patients that I will encounter while working.

 

Connecting to Campus

I think one of the main problems that I’ve encountered this semester is involvement. I know there are a number of events and fairs held on ODU that can help me get out there and make some friends. I do have a very small group of friends that I know from highschool that have helped get me out of the room. Other than that, I have yet to make any friends with people that I didn’t already know before. Also, we’ve kind of been leaning on each other and figuring out the whole college experience together. I have not attended an interest meeting for a club just yet, even though I would like to. I just want to make sure that it’s a club that pertains to my interests and is going to be worth the time I’d need to give it in order to thrive in the club.