Expectations of INQ

            The goal of the freshman INQ class was to get us to “immerse” ourselves in the college experience.  Such experiences include being able to handle multiple tasks at a time, being able to solve problems on our own, not being afraid to ask questions or take risks, learning how to grapple with things that may be difficult, finding our creative sides, learning from our failures, taking ownership of our own learning, and being able to apply abstract concepts to our everyday lives.  That is a lot to be thrown at college freshmen, who have maybe never had to deal with most or any of these experiences.  While all of this seems complex and a lot to handle, I have been able to conquer most, if not all of these expectations for myself.

Juggling multiple tasks

            This semester I got acquainted with multi tasking better than I ever had before.  I would have multiple papers due on the same day, a paper and a project due on the same day, and especially on weekends I would have my two blogs for INQ due by Saturday night, a short blurb essay due on Monday for History, sometimes a journal entry due for my Theatre class on Monday, and whatever would be due for Tuesday since I get home late on Mondays and do not have a lot of time to do work when I get home.  I used to think that multi tasking was easy, and sometimes it is (i.e. listening to music while doing homework).  However, when there are several assignments that all need to be done by the same time is when multi tasking becomes a little more severe than walking and chewing gum.

 Be a problem solver

            INQ has taught me that there are many different ways to view a situation.  Everyone deals with issues in his or her own way.  If there is one thing I learned about being a problem solver, it is that there is no one way to solve a problem!

Ask questions

            I have always been the type of person who does not like to ask for help, I like to do things on my own and figure it out, otherwise I feel incapable.  I learned though, that it is just the opposite.  It would be silly of me to not ask questions or not ask for help because if I don’t ask, I don’t learn. 

Take risks

            In college there are many opportunities and experiences.  It is important to take risks to gain knowledge about something as well as to broaden our horizons with experiences different than that of what we are used to.  It is also important to take risks with assignments and work that we get in college because we can learn from the risks we take whether they are good risks or bad risks.  A risk taken may be a good one and may bring about a better grade, or a risk can be a bad one and may bring about a worse grade than we had.  Either way, we learn from our risks and learn what to do and what not do to again.

 Grapple with difficulty

            College is much more difficult than high school.  One of the biggest difficulties that freshman in college have to deal with is the transition from high school to college.  For my own personal endeavor of entering college, I had to get used to commuting a half hour to and from Southern every day.  When I was in high school, my trip would literally be thirty seconds up the road to get to school.  

I also had to become acclimated to the different scheduling of college classes.  In college, classes can be dispersed all throughout the day.  In high school, a student’s day starts at about 7:30 a.m. and goes to about 2:00 p.m. and includes six to seven classes a day.  My earliest class this semester is 9:35 a.m. and my latest class ends at 7:30 p.m. but I only have a couple classes a day.  This was a little hard to get used to, but I like it a lot better than I liked high school scheduling.

Be creative

            In college creativity is a big part surviving socially as well as academically.  People are usually drawn to those who are creative because they seem to be more exciting and someone interesting to be around.  The same holds true for being creative academically.  Meeting the requirements and doing what is expected on an assignment deserves a decent grade.  However, it is the extras that put an assignment over the top and deserves an excellent grade.  Learning how to use imovie this semester will allow me to make future projects and assignments more exciting and original.  It will make my work stand out more than others…hopefully!  With being creative, though comes risk.  It is risky to be creative because creativity can either help or hinder an assignment or first impression on someone else.  However, without taking creative risks, one will never know what the outcome might have been.  The creative risk might have been the one thing that got him the job or grade, or the one thing that did not get him the job or grade, but by playing it safe, he will never know.

Learn from failure

            As ridiculous as it may sound, failure can be a good thing.  No one wants to fail at something, but sometimes we learn best from our failures.  If we fail at something, we are likely to remember what it was that caused us to fail; therefore we can remember not to do that certain thing again.  I have been very fortunate this semester so far and have not failed anything yet…let’s hope that continues through finals!  In INQ this semester, we talked about failure and the outcomes of failure and whether it brings about a positive or negative experience.  I do know that for myself, when I fail, it makes me want to improve for next time, or the next assignment almost to prove that I can pick myself back up again and conquer it. 

Take ownership over learning

            All throughout school up through high school, we were taught that teachers are responsible for making sure that the students know and learn the material.  They would chase us down to turn in our work and really took responsibility for us.  However, in college it is quite the opposite.  It is not the professors’ jobs to make sure that we learn the material it is our responsibility.  They could care less if we turn in our work because it is not their responsibility to make sure that we do.  If we don’t turn something in, it is just less for them to have to grade.  I had to take ownership over learning in my history class.  I have never done exceptionally well in history, so I wanted to make sure that I was doing well in class.  My professor does not like to discuss grades because he is “uninterested” in them and “could care less” about what grade we have in his class.  I went to his office hours to ask him how I was doing in his class knowing that he does not like to discuss grades, so I had to finagle the question in a different context to learn that I was actually doing well in the class.  It is important for students to know what their professors are like regarding the class so that they know how to communicate with them.

Apply abstract concepts to everyday life

            In INQ we talk a lot about abstract ideas and concepts that can be applied to our everyday lives.  In doing this, we are gaining a new and more collegiate outlook on our lives and various situations.  If we allow ourselves to think abstractly, we will make ourselves more worldly in a way because we have such I higher order way of thinking that will allow us to stand out from the crowd.

          I have had to tackle just about all of the expectations of a college student, but still have some that I maybe need to work on.  Juggling multiple tasks is definitely one that needs more attention as well as trying to be more of a risk taker, as I like to play it safe a lot of the time.  Because of at least attempting to meet these expectations, I feel that I have met the requirements of this course.  I may still need to work on things, but I have a pretty good idea of what is expected of me and what I need to do in order to be a successful college student, which was the whole purpose of the INQ class. 

I found that I have grown over the semester as a student in that I know what is expected of me and know what I need to do.  I would say that I need to keep track of my assignments a little better, as I have let myself slip with work a little in this class.  Remembering and time management are two of my biggest weaknesses, so I think that a good thing for me to do would be to write down all of my assignments according to when they are due and figure out what needs to take priority over everything else.  This coincides with one of my personal goals for the remainder of my time in college.  This goal is to not have to rush to get an assignment finished on time.  I would like to be one of those students who starts projects and assignments early and works on them a little at a time in order to get them done in a timely manner and not have to worry about anything the night before they are due except if I want to make small last minute adjustments.

Another one of my personal goals for college is to come out of my comfort zone of not getting involved in things and actually start becoming more involved.  Even if it is just a small group or organization, I would like to try to break out of my stereotypical commuter ways and instead of going to class and then leaving, I would maybe like to be a part of something at Southern. 

As of right now, I have no regrets about my college experience so far.  The way I see it is that I have at least seven more semesters to have experiences and make memories, and I can’t regret anything because my journey through college is far from over.  I can say that one thing I will not regret is blogging.  I really enjoyed finding my voice through blogging.  I may not have completed all of the blog assignments, and may not have always enjoyed the topics that we had to blog about, but it is fun to post views and ideas and experiences for other people to see and hopefully become enlightened from it.  I am still not quite sure as to who I am or what may define me, but it sure will be a fun experience to find out!

Food Will Bring Us Together

Food is a staple when my family gets together.  We are always eating at every family function.  My mom’s side of the family is Slovak and my dad’s side is Italian.  Slovaks like to eat, and Italians like to eat while they wait to eat.   Therefore, food is a must.  When there is food, people will gather together to eat and talk and catch up with one another.  I am very thankful that my family is so loving when we share a meal together.  Like all families we have our spats, and like the majority of Italian families we are very loud, which makes it seem like we are having huge fights, but at the end of the day we all love each other and we know it…there are no grudges.

I have always been very curious about why we only have the traditional Thanksgiving dinner one day a year.  Everyone always loves the food at Thanksgiving, but we never really eat it any other time of the year.  In watching all of the preparation though, it made me realize that so much time and effort goes into preparing a Thanksgiving meal and it is not something that would be easily done every day.  I also think that having Thanksgiving dinner one day a year makes it all the more special, as well as something to really look forward to every year.

It is important to my family to have food when we are together because the food is what brings us together.  Some people may be in the living room watching tv, some may be in the kitchen making the food or socializing, but as soon as it’s time for dinner, everyone congregates to the kitchen table and sits down together as one family.  It is a great feeling to be around the people we love and share a good meal with each other.  

A Peaceful Place

            A place to study should be somewhere that is peaceful and where you can relax.  This semester I am taking a performance class in Lyman.  In the class we have gotten several group assignments and have had to meet with our groups outside of class to work.  When my group would meet, it would be in the same spot each time.  On the side of Lyman (between Lyman and Earl Hall), there are rocks that are flat on top so people can sit and study or do work.  It is under trees so that if the sun is out and it is really bright that day, the trees will prevent the sun from beating down on you.  Now that it is getting colder outside though and snow will start soon, it is not too ideal to sit outside.  When the winter is over though and the spring comes, it will be nice to be able to sit outside to study again.  The area is secluded enough that you can block out the commotion of people around you, but it is not too secluded so that you will not be in the middle of nowhere on campus.  If you like to be outside and you like nature, I highly recommend that you try sitting down and studying here, or even just sitting and people watching or listening to music and relaxing.  It is a great place to keep yourself focused and not have your mind racing in a bunch of different directions and stressing about classes or anything else going on in your life…it is a place of peace and serenity. 

Calm, Cool, and Collected?

Stress is something that I face every day of my life, multiple times a day.  I have a really big problem with stress and anxiety and try to relieve these problems as best I can.  For my performance class, part of our class and homework is to do yoga to help with being focused and relaxed.  I found that doing yoga really does help to keep my mind in one place and not think about everything else that is going on around me and in my life.  Everything has to be dealt with sooner or later, but unless you are in the proper mindset to deal with those things, you will just stress yourself out even more. 

It is important to be relaxed and feel relaxed, especially when stressed.  If yoga isn’t really your thing, we also learned deep breathing exercises that coincide with yoga and the poses.  Deep breathing is good to do no matter where you are so you don’t have to get up in the middle of a test and do the downward dog pose.  When you feel stressed or feel that you will soon become stressed, do some deep breathing.  I do that when I’m stuck in traffic because I get really stressed and I will admit to having a small case of road rage.  Instead of lashing out irrationally when I’m behind the wheel, I take the safer approach of breathing deeply. 

If you are prone to getting anxiety or being stressed out, it is important to do deep breathing exercises regularly because if you familiarize your body with how to become relaxed when you are feeling stressed, your body will recognize that you are stressed when you are and will automatically know what to do in order to handle the stress and relax you.

Just Breathe - Anna Nalick

Inflating Inflation

I really don’t think that grade inflation is a good thing.  It has not been good in my own personal experiences and I don’t think that students should have that safety net of knowing that even if they don’t do well on something, their grades will still be okay because professors will just inflate them.

As I said in class on Tuesday, in my Junior year in high school I did not do well in math.  I would fail quizzes and tests and one time I went to my teacher to talk to him about it.  He had me sit down with him and he helped me correct the problems I got wrong and ended up changing my grade from a 32 to an 84!  I thought it was great at the time and I really took advantage of that.  However, when I got to my Senior year and had no idea what was going on because I had never actually learned what I had needed to the year before.  I did a lot worse in my math class senior year and realized that I could no longer rely on teachers changing my grades for basically no reason other than to raise my grade and make it seem like I’m doing better than I actually am. 

I really don’t think that it’s fair for the other students who actually try and earn their good grades for professors to raise other kids’ grades.  In my math class this year, there are a lot of kids who don’t really try to do well because they just don’t care.  I used to be like that, but now I am actually trying and it is paying off.  I have a B- in math, which is unheard of for me and I am really proud of myself because I know that I deserve the grades I am getting in that class.  When we get tests back a lot of kids in my class will ask if there will be a curve on the grading and I sit there thinking it’s not fair for their grades to be higher because they don’t care, they don’t try.  I think that grade inflation will encourage students to not try as hard in their classes because they will have in the backs of their minds that their professors will raise their grades even though they do not deserve it.

Grade Inflation Article Reflection

            In the article “Grade Inflation in American Education”, author Thomas R. Eddlem talks about how professors at some universities are inflating their students’ grades so that they have higher GPAs.  They are doing this because jobs are becoming more and more competitive, so by raising GPAs, their students have a better chance of getting jobs.  There are some qualms that people have about doing this and they are saying that by inflating grades, students will not work as hard at their schoolwork because their grades will be higher anyway.

Tulane University in New Orleans, LA is one of the universities that is inflating students’ grades.  One of my best friends goes to Tulane; he was third in our graduating class and always took his schoolwork seriously, but ever since he has been down at Tulane, his work ethics have changed dramatically.  He wants/wanted to be a surgeon and is/was going to Tulane for pre-med, but he has not been focusing nearly as much on school as he should be. This really concerns me because I am afraid that he will just do whatever he has to just get by and rely on grade inflations and expect his professors to raise his grades to higher his GPA.

I personally do not think that it is a good idea for schools to inflate students’ grades to raise their GPAs just so that they have a better shot in getting a job.  I think that grade inflation will make students think that they can spend less time studying and doing schoolwork and more time out partying and not focusing on what they need to be focusing on.

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