Movie Project

There are six days left until our video project is due.  I would say that I have put five hours of work into it so far.  I’m surprisingly finding this project very easy.   All we have to do is collect information about our topic question.  Mine is “what is there to do on the SCSU campus?”  This is a good topic for me because I have found myself being very bored on weekends here.  I started my project by interviewing a couple people I know and today I interviewed my professor.   When I was looking through the example videos that went up I saw that a lot had the slides with text on them and I found them very boring.  I was bored and uninterested in all so I said that I would do just about my entire movie with all camera things.  I find it working very well for me and I will definitely continue to do it this way.  I tried making my video entertaining so not everyone is bored so my friend who I interviewed made it funny.   The questions that I am going to answer in my video are what is there to do on campus and what clubs can you join on campus to keep you involved!  I can’t wait to post my video.

Planning ahead

This time management assignment has shown me the things that I have been doing in the past week.  It has shown me some of the good things that I am doing and some of the bad things that I am doing.  To start off I have noticed by looking at my time management table that I spend a lot of my time hanging out with friends and playing xbox.  Another thing that I do not like about my schedule is that I am doing a lot of homework and studying.  You may think to yourself “well that is a good thing,” but the truth is in the hours that I am doing my homework I am also procrastinating.  I have to do my homework in the common area because my Ethernet cord does not work in my room, and the location of my room is at the very end of the hall so the wireless internet does not reach all the way down there.  When it is time for homework I sit in the common area, where on my floor everyone seems to hangout.  I don’t get anything done for a good hour and then once it gets later and people start disappearing I finally am able to concentrate.  I spend a lot of time in the beginning procrastinating and I do not like it!  The thing that I do not like most about my schedule is the time I do my homework and the time I hang out with my friends needs to be flipped.  I should be doing my homework right after class and in the afternoon.  I feel the reason is that I have four hours of class and then I have to do 3 hours of homework just does not sound good to me so I don’t want to do it.  That is why I wait.  Hopefully soon I can change my schedule around and do the important stuff first and the other stuff last.  I also do not like my schedule of sleep.  Last year I was used to going to bed at ten o’clock and waking up earlier.  This year I am going to bed after twelve o’clock and waking up in the late morning, early afternoon.  After I flip my work and hang out schedule around I can fix my sleep schedule.  This is my time management goal.

Grade A Work

As our next blogging assignment we are supposed to go from blog to blog and view other students work and determine what blog in our own opinion is “A” work.  I started this assignment by looking through a number of blogs to only find out they were all good in their own ways.  One of the blogs I would have given an A grade to would be “Weston’s Blog.”  I choose this one because I think that he puts the truth into his blogs.  This blog is written well and he puts all the information into his work that he needs to.  Not only does he do those things, but Weston’s blog is simple, yet at the same time he is elaborate.  He says in one of his blogs that he is not being mean to anyone he just wants to tell the truth.  Many of the blogs that are also good are the ones that have a lot of information and they also put in multiple pictures.  A well put together blog is “College Living” because when you open it you can immediately tell that it is different then everyone else’s blogs.  I am not a teacher, and I am not used to grading things for people, but I can tell you what ones in my opinion would be “A” grades.

Things To Continue

One of the things that we have been focusing on in my classes is taking notes.  We have spent countless hours on taking notes in college and what I have learned is that you need to improve your note taking skills to the next level.  One of the things we have learned in our class is the Cornell note taking system where you include not only the basic notes like dates and stats and vocab, but you put those and your write down a summary of the notes in a paragraph.  You also put together some test prep questions on the side so that will help you develop questions for your test and will make it easier to study.  Taking college level notes is very important to do because it’s not just about the facts you have to ask yourself questions and comment on notes.  A useful technique that I have been using in my schedule is managing my time here at Southern.  I have learned to put school work into my daily routine and it is working out very well with all the things that I have been doing and keeping me busy which I cannot say is a bad thing.  I think that to keep my goals still in play as the semester goes on I have to keep my mind focused on school and make sure that it is my number one priority.  If I don’t focus on it I will be very lost in my classes and it will not be good for me.  I just have to manage my time wisely still and I put a lot of effort into my work.  

Community Coordinator

Tonight I was able to take the time to sit down with my CC and ask him some questions about becoming a Community Coordinator.  My CC is Mike and we talked about the steps it takes to become one.  Mike told me that the first thing you have to do is apply online and you also have to meet the requirements.  He’s not positive, but your grade point average must be at least a 2.5 or better to be a Community Coordinator.  The next thing you have to do when meeting the requirements is have an interview in front of the entire hall directors.  Those are just the steps of becoming a CC, now I wanted to talk about the benefits that the CC’s get.  The best thing Mike said about being a CC is the free housing on campus which saves him a whole lot of money each year.  Another benefit Mike gets is that he gets paid for being a CC!  I would have never guessed that they would get paid, but what do you know!  Mike said that he also gets early registration for classes.  Some of the responsibilities he has to take on as a CC though are taking care of the residents, and being a good advisor for them as well.  He must continue throughout the year to fulfill the program requirements including the GPA and others.  Mike must make a good community for the students and make sure that the students are all active all the time.  This is Mikes second year as a CC and he is only a junior.  Maybe a CC is something I want to do next year.

New Friends

Something that I have had to overcome recently is making new friends.  This may seem easy for some people, but for me it is much harder because I have not had to make friends in very long.  For six years I have had the three best friends that I could ever ask for.  We all live in the same neighborhood and it is amazing to me how four of us could all end up in the same neighborhood.  Yes I do have other friends, but in high school I would only hang out with my best friends.  This year I had to make new friends now because none of my best friends are at this school.  I can tell you that I have not made a lot of friends, but I could also tell you that the amount I have made is not nearly the total I will meet this year and future years.  I have learned that I can’t just have a couple friends and that I need to have a wide range of friends so that when it may not work out with some of them I still have other people who would love to hang out with me.  I can tell you now that I will definitely be friends with my best friends forever and they will never be anywhere without me in there mind.  I plan on making friends with a lot more people here at Southern and I cannot wait to meet these people.  This is going to be a great year and maybe I can meet someone who will be one of my new best friends.

Managing your time OUTSIDE the classroom?

Managing your time in and out of the classroom is very important for a freshman in college.  It is a total change from when in high school you are in school for seven hours a day and then go home and free to do what you please, but with your parents approval.  In college it is almost the exact opposite.  You see here in college you are only in class for two maybe three hours a day and when you are not in the classroom you are here to hang out with your friends because you are on campus 24/7.  You do not have to ask your parents if you can go to this place or that place and you have the freedom to eat what you want and when you want.  It’s a total change for one person to get used to and because of this change in so little time you have to be able to manage your time with your school life and your personal life.

What I learned in my first week in Inquiry is that in college you are supposed to spend more time out of the classroom then you are in, and not just a little more time. DOUBLE IT.  Now for me, I know that high school was very hard to focus on while it was going on and I never wanted to be in class doing work because my mind was on more important things at the time.  What I was told and from the readings is now I have to use my own personal time to go over homework and things?  What kind of place is this?  I know that I am going to have to work really hard in doing my work outside the classroom because it has always been a problem of mine.  I think it will definitely be better because every day after school in high school and middle school my 3 best friends lived on the same street so instead of me wanting to do homework I would want to hang out with them instead.  I don’t have those close friends here so it might be easier without that temptation.   In my notes I read that you need to attend every class and every outside activity so that I can do my best in the classroom and show the professor I really have a care for my work.  Also not only in the classroom, but outside of it I need to put a lot of effort and time into the outside studying work.  I have always struggled with the outside work from past schools and my challenge for myself is to keep my mind focused on school and do everything I need to do inside and outside the classroom to succeed.  No matter what it takes I will do it.  Who’s with me?

Men's Soccer

This week I went to the Southern Connecticut State University’s men’s soccer team home opener at Jess Dow field.  Senior Mario DiMiceli scored three goals which is known as a hat trick in soccer.  The men won 4-0 over the College of Saint Rose.  It was a good game for the men and I enjoyed going to it because it reminded me of all the times in high school going to those games.  I definitely plan on going to more games this year and I also can’t wait for the football games to be here so I can see those too.

Whats Blogging?

I think something about a blog that is important that I have found out on my own is the background of your blogs and the layout to your blogging website is very important.  Before you even look at the writing the first thing you notice before the title of the blog is the background and you see if it is boring or not.  If you go onto a website and it’s just plain white in the background you might not even be interested in reading the blogs you post. If it is white in your background you better be the best writer and have the best titles that will have any viewer interested.  I personally am on my second blog and I have that white background, but after this blog is up online I plan on changing everything.  Before this blog I changed the name of my blog from Brendan Dickinson’s Blogger to The College Experience.  That one thing will get viewers interested and wanting to read my posts online.  Something else that I have noticed from other blogs are that the authors are good writers who know how to put together a short blog and pack a bunch of information into it.  I plan on just becoming an overall better writer because I have always been afraid of sharing my work and I want to get people to read my work and see if my writing is good or not.  I hope that this blogging experience is a good one for me and classmates. I hope to share my opinion with others and back it up with facts and tell everyone what I believe in.  I can tell this semester will be fun for everyone and I am excited for what challenges come.

That First week

As we leave high school we are expected to move on to a new school, with new people, and new teachers.  Life as a college student is a completely different life then life as a high school student.  You are given freedom and don’t have to follow as much rules as you do as when you are in high school.  When you come here though you are going for the same reason you have always gone to school, to further your education hoping that it will pay off for you and get you a job you will love.  Now as a student though you are here to be a college student and enjoy the experience as a student.  It’s your first time being on your own and  you can choose what to do and when to do it, you’re more responsible and it’s up to you to make the right choices.  Just some of the goals I want to accomplish as a student here at Southern is to become involved in the campus and go out of my comfort zone which is one of the things they told us to do at orientation.   I hope that I have a great experience here at Southern and I can only get the best education by doing my best work in all classes and work my butt off at everything I do.  Not only do I want to focus on school, but I want to have fun and enjoy the campus life as a resident here.  Join clubs and do as many activities that would be fun and interesting to me.  I cannot wait for this college experience to start.