Learning Profile

This class teaches many lessons. Throughout the class, all the students learned many topics: some of these topics included engage, persist, prioritize, read, learn, record, remember, assess, think and prosper. Engaging yourself in college is when you as a student step out of your comfort zone and branch out in class keeping a positive attitude. Persistence is simply working hard and trying your best and making wise decisions throughout college. The next chapter talks about prioritizing which is what it sounds. Keeping organized and keeping the important subjects ahead of the rest of the stuff like partying. The next subject is reading. Reading is very important because comprehension and having a strong vocabulary is helpful in learning. Learning is then next chapter. In that chapter one learns how to retain and store knowledge in a more effective way. After learning comes recording. Recording is learning how to listen to the important information and write it down or remember it for later purposes. Remember is the next chapter. In this chapter you learn how to commit information into long term memory and you learn how the brain and sleep all work together to help improve your memory. After remember is assess. Taking tests and assessments can be stressful and this chapter helps students learn how to study correctly and reduce stress. Thinking is the second to last chapter in the book. The chapter teaches students that thinking on a deeper level is critical. The final chapter is about prospering. By the end of the book, a student will have prospered hopefully and that will help them with the rest of their lives.

After most all classes, it is common to look back and try to analyze yourself. So, looking back, I have noticed that as a student, I am best at being an organizing and prioritizing my homework and study habits. Being organized has always come easy to me and I have always been good at keeping my priorities in order. Whether my priority is to one of my friends who is in need of my help or whether or not my homework is a priority over a job or mine. I think that I would be best at teaching other students how to be better prioritizers. Most students find themselves often picking activities that may not be as important as others and sometimes, students just do not understand the importance of completing certain tasks.

I am a strong student for sure, but like everyone else, I am by no means perfect. If I were to analyze myself after this class of what skill or idea I feel I possess a weakness in, I would have to say it is my reading skills. As I sit in class most days, I can take one look around and find many students that are much better readers than I. Sometimes when a teacher has us read a passage by ourselves in class, I will not be done reading before she starts talking about the passage. I hate having to read for homework. Usually, that could be an easy task because all you have to do is sit there and read a few pages, but for me, it takes entirely too long. I will sit down and start reading, but often times, I only read a few pages in a matter or ten minutes. It is frustrating to me and also very time consuming. Sometimes, I am so busy with volleyball that I do not have sufficient enough time to finish reading what I need to read. I am confident that in all of my other college courses, I am going to get the practice I need in order to improve my reading skills. Soon I will be able to read faster, and hopefully comprehend all of it.

The end of semester has arrived. This first semester of my freshman year went very quickly and I felt like I did learn quite a bit from my college experience. After taking this student connect class, I do check my Pipeline account almost everyday like I should be. I have really learned not to procrastinate on my work because it does not pay off in the end. I also learned that I learn information much different from other students. It taught me that sometimes if I do not understand the way a teacher is teaching a class, I should try approaching the notes or lecture in a different way. Not every student is the same and that class definitely opened my eyes to see that. The most important realization I found in this class was the fact that every student is different. Everyone has their own learning habits and their own schedules. Student athletes and just regular students may have very different lives and problems, but they are all just as busy as the others. I have always been a student athlete and it is not that I thought that I had life much more difficult that others, but I learned I was not alone. I have gotten to meet many other athletes and learned that I am not alone. My schedule is just as busy as other people and I should appreciate and take advantage of all the extra time I have in life. The most significant skill that I learned was the skill of reading. I have always been able to read, but I learned, not every word is as important as the next. Sometimes, reading faster, or skimming will get you to comprehend the same amount of information, if not more, after you finish.

This class did include a few assignments and class discussions that did have some relevance. Not all of them were as influential as the others, but they all tied into the course somehow. Towards the end of the semester, our class did watch a video about a life of a young girl that was taken by the effects of alcohol. This was one of the most influential subjects I believe that we touched because as unfortunate as it may seem, it does pertain to a lot of college students. Personally, I have never engaged in drinking or taking drugs, but I am certainly around many people who do engage in those activities. Everyday I see my roommates and classmates hurt themselves with alcohol. If it does not kill them, it can hurt them tremendously emotionally. They have lost friends because they got drunk and said something they did not mean. A lesson that people have to learn someway, I guess. Anyways, watching that video and discussing some events similar to that with my classmates really helped me realize that there are people out there that need to be helped and cared for even when they have done something very stupid. Topics we discussed that were not as relevant I thought were sometimes about making a small difference. I remember we read a short story about a boy who did not help this man in time. That story was kind of sad, but even though it is nice to help some people, sometimes it is not enough. The story was good to listen to, but not very effective in my eyes.

The course as a whole was not too bad. The course was short, which was very good. I think if it were any longer students would lose complete all interest and not accomplish as much as they really can. All of the subjects pretty much went along with the class, but if I were to drop one of the subjects it would have been the academic honesty paper. The paper is good to know about, but honestly, that is why students take composition classes. They learn it that stuff in other places. The methods that were used to teach that class were interesting some days. Watching videos is something that I would keep in that class because students like more relaxing activities that make them think. I would definitely drop some of the discussion groups. Most the time, students get into a tiny group and talk about what they ate for breakfast even though they know it should be about the subject. There is not really much that anyone could add to the teaching methods. The final part of the class that I would like to discuss is the way students are evaluated. To be honest, the questions that students were required to write on the back of the rubrics did not seem to serve much of a purpose. The attendance rubric is a good idea, but filling out the back of it was a waste of time. I would keep the attendance points though so students are not tempted to skip class. The blogs are also very clever. Students can work at their own pace and still get stuff done. I would leave that the same for the class.

For future students, I have a few words of advice. This student connect class is a very simple course, but do not catch yourself thinking that skipping one class here and there is not a big problem. The class is a very fast passing class and going to class will help you stay on task. Also, do not wait till the night before all of the papers are due to actually do them. Most likely, something will go wrong or you will just be incredibly bored. Procrastination is not helpful and one should always keep pushing forward. If I would have known coming into this course that these tiny two hundred and fifty word essays would build up into such a big project, I would have stayed even more on top of them then I did.

Overall, this class will help me in many ways. It has already effect my procrastination skills and I will always remember the advice about reading. Hopefully, I will continue to practice my speed reading skills and my reading will improve. Other than my learning skills and abilities, this class did teach me to open up to other people. I was forced to step outside of my comfort zone some days and speak with other individuals I did not know. Those students I found out were just like me and trying to survive like everyone else there. I will always remember the experiences I went through in this class and hopefully the lessons I learned will reflect into my everyday life.