Keys to Success

I think the keys to success for me right now have 3 main factors: planning, study and time management.

With regards to planning, I should have a clear vision about my major as well the college I want to transfer to. I need to map out all my required courses and try to achieve the highest GPA possible. I should not put all the difficult courses in one semester if that is possible. I need to focus on volunteer projects, esp. those related to my major and intended career, i.e. pharmacy. I need to think about letters of recommendation, making a good impression with my professors as well as a pharmacist. I need a great personal essay when I submit my application too.

About study and time management, I should attend classes regularly and do all the required assignments. It is crucial to establish a routine time to study for each class. For every hour of class instruction, I need to study 2 hours outside of class. Study includes more than just doing homework. I need to go over my notes and textbook, labeling, highlighting and make sure I understand them. Read ahead when possible so I have better idea what will be covered in class.

I should find the time in a day that I perform best to study and avoid late night crams. Breaks are important too. Ten-minute break after every hour of study would suffice. Avoid long blocks of time for studying. Spread out several short study sessions during the day.

I need to make use of resources on campus more. There are instructors’ office hours,  MESA tutors, math lab tutors, library, counselors…

Last but not least, I should focus on being healthy too. Getting enough rest is crucial.

First Day Experience

The first meeting of Counseling 102 is very informative and the assignments are instructed well in the syllabus handout. That helped me to get a clear view of the objectives as well as the requirements of the class.

The ice breaking activity was fun. The class has students of various majors from business, retail floristry, social work, and biological sciences to computer sciences. I talked to Andrew and Nick, and later we formed a group with Nam for our student services and organizations presentation. We named our group “Fantastic 4”.

The format for submitting assignments is different from my other classes. Most of the assignments will be in the form of blog posts, which is great for archiving purposes, personalization as well as ease of reading. The eportfolio using blogger is a great idea as it is a great method for sharing content among students, instructor, friends and family.

Char provided the students with a walkthrough of the assignments and activities for each week. The outline is packed with useful information and I’m looking forward to going through each of them. It also includes a grading rubric so that I know about the requirements for each assignment.

All the activities are useful. On my own, I would not know where to start to learn about myself and the career I want to get involved in. This class provides me with a blueprint about how I can better do that.

All in all, counseling 102 is a class that will benefit me in the long run as it provides me with resources to better learn about myself and prepare me to be successful.