10V The Creative Drive

Creativity:  the use of imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.
Vision: the formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses. 
Muse: reflect deeply on a subject.
          the source of an artist's inspiration.

 Creativity is something that is present in all of us, but it is up to us to dig deep and use it in our daily lives. There is so much more to creativity than the artistic side of it, because I consider myself creative, but cannot draw or paint to save my life.  What I think makes me creative is that I am able to think of new ways to solve a problem and use them where as someone else would solve the same problem in a more simpler way; I like to think outside of the box.

There are things that a person needs to have in order to be creative, and that is a vision and muse. A vision is important to have because that way you have an idea of what it is you want to do, and you’re not shooting blindly into the night, although it’s nice to have a vision, I think it should be something that is reasonable. A person also needs to have a muse, something that inspires them, it could be a thing or a person, but they need something to get them going. If a person is able to find what their vision and muse is, then I think that their future is wide open and can be anything that they imagine it to be.

10I #15 The Multicultural Center

        The Multicultural Center is great place that is located in room 234 of the Student Center, and they are here to provide a better understanding to students about the importance of diversity and offer multiple programs to help with that. They also try and promote diversity in the classroom and in the workplace. If you are like me, I bet you are wondering if the Multicultural center is a club? Well the answer is no, but they do offer organizations for students to join, like the Multicultural Advisory Board. The Advisory Board’s main mission is to put on activities that help to create a sense of community and to improve the life of students on campus at Southern to help them feel more equal. 

This is one event that the Multicultural Center is putting on and will be held in the Ballroom of the Student Center on January 30th.

10B My Creative Biography

                There are obviously people in this world who are more creative than I am, but I don’t think that I am lacking in creativity, some ideas I had might not have been the best, but they were still creative nevertheless. In some ways we are all creative, but it is up to us as the individual to dig deep and use our creativity before it is gone and we can never use it.

                My mom has always been someone that inspires me, I know sounds cheesy and cliché, but it is true. She always encourages me to do whatever it is that I want to do, to never be a follower but instead a leader, and most importantly never feel pressured into doing something because someone want s me to do it. The day before I started classes at Southern she bought me a poster for my room that has a quote be George Bernard Shaw and says “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will”. This quote is what I see every day when I wake up and is something that I value deeply, but otherwise wouldn’t if my mom never encouraged me to be creative when I was younger and still encourages me to use my creative side in every part of life.

                I remember when I was in first grade; I was able to put my creativity to the test. We were making our own didgeridoos, some kind of musical instruments, and we were able to decorate them any way we wanted to and our teacher wasn’t going to help us in anyway. I painted my didgeridoo with every color that was in front of me, and when I was finished I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. I still have that didgeridoo in my closet, and looking at it now, it is just a mess of colors and have absolutely no clue why I ever thought that it looked good!! Even though I did not have the best art sense when I was five, I still admire how my teacher just stood back and didn’t try to help us, which is something that I think all teachers should do; let the creativity run through their students.  

10A Time To Reflect

I have never created a video for a class project before in my life, and now that I am at Southern, I had to work on two at the same time!!! When it came to my Inquiry, I found that sticking to these requirements were easier than with my Recreation and Leisure class. I was able to get my video to fulfill all of the components that needed to be incorporated with this video; I stuck to the topic, filled the time limit, and interviewed more people than that was needed. My video had a beginning, middle, and end; it was done on time, and I made sure I gave credit to everyone who helped me and participated in it. Even though I did all that, if I was able to remake my video there would be things that I would do differently.

I feel that with my video, I was able to keep it informative, but it was lacking in the entertainment department. Although I do agree with the topic that I had, that the professors here are part of what makes Southern great, it was hard to get enthusiasm out of the students that I interviewed. If I were to give myself a grade on this project it would be a solid “B”. I put a lot of effort into this video, but without a doubt chose other people to interview, none of them wanted to be filmed!! Another thing that I would change about my video is that I would try to have students tell more personal stories about their professors, preferably funny ones. The one thing that I liked the most about my movie was that I was to the point, and you that you heard not just about how much the student s liked their professors, but also how the professors here also want to have a connection with their students as well.

As for the technology that went along with project, honestly I would be okay with never having to use it again. I used Windows Movie Maker, and not that I was hard to use, it just took time to learn how to use, and I am a very impatient person. Once I finished it, getting the video onto my blog wasn’t hard, it was the uploading it to YouTube that took forever.  As a piece of advice, when uploading something to YouTube give yourself plenty of time, I was done with my video at 5PM and it didn’t fully upload until 10:30!!!! 

Midterm Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHrjPmGCpF8&feature=youtu.be

9B Midterm Refelction

                After looking at my midterm grades, I would say that I am very happy with where I am because as of right now my lowest grade is a B+. The reason why my grades are where I want them to be is because I am diligent about getting my work done and always try to put forward my best work. Yes the work that I do shows through with the grades that I have right now, but there are areas that a desperately need to improve on, and one of them would be, like everyone else, procrastination!! I tend to wait until the last minute to do some of my work, and fortunately it hasn't hurt me just yet, but it is only a matter of time until it does. I find that when I do give myself enough time to do something, it ends up not only being the best work that I have done, but something that I am proud of.

                Even though my grades are exactly where I want them to be, there are a few goals that I want to accomplish as the second half of the semester starts. For one I need to make sure that set a work schedule and make sure that I stick with it to eliminate any possibility of waiting until the last possible minute to get my work done. I also want to make sure that I am more organized, I know where everything is, but finding it in that place is a different story. I have folder for each of my class, and instead of just shoving stuff in there, I am going to try and make it go in chronological order so my papers are easy to find. I think seeing my midterms grades in place where I want them to me, not only reassures me that I am doing well and should be proud of myself, but also is a motivator to help me strive to improve on not only my work but skills that I need to work on as well. 

9I # 20 Sonia Sotomayor visit

                At first I was dreading going to this talk because it was the night of my birthday, but afterwards I has happy that I went. It was interesting to hear that on some degree Sonia Sotomayor was going through the same thing as me. I am the first one in my family to go to college, and in the back of my mind I always feel like there is someone rooting for me to fail. Sonia’s talk was inspiring for me because that even though there were people attacking her, telling her that she wasn't smart enough, she didn't let them win, she persisted on and proved them wrong. During the talk she also gave some good advice for us, she suggested that we don’t just take the courses that we have to, but also take ones that seem interesting to us, and that will help us to become a more well-rounded and developed person. I was happy that this talk was mandatory, and I definitely got more out of it than I thought I was going to.   

9A The How To's of Critical Thinking

           Critical thinking has come up a lot in my Sociology class, and I never really understood what it was or why it was important until then. I have learned that to be a good critical thinker a person needs to be able to put their feelings aside and think logically, not with their heart but rather with their head. There are different types of ways a person can use critical thinking, for instance they can use to try and analyze information or to try and formulate an argument. When using critical thinking to evaluate an argument there are standards that a person has to follow; they need to be precise, accurate, clear, and the argument must be consistent and logical. Critical thinking is something that I think all professors here at Southern want us as students to get in the habit of using because it will help us to understand the information better and intern be able to use it more wisely in the future.

            Critical thinking is not something that is just going to come easy to us, it takes time and practice to fully understand it. To think critically I think we need to instead of just reading something we have to interact with it. Summarizing what we read is not good enough anymore, we need to understand what it was about, but we need to analyze, figure why this was important and what was the point of us reading it, what are we gaining from it. When it comes to classes that I am taking, I find that it is not just important for me to use critical thinking, but almost necessary. For instance, in my Online Communications course, critical thinking plays an important role in it. In this class I have to use critical thinking to better understand the information and be able to evaluate what makes someone do or use the types of that they do. In my opinion, a student who doesn’t use critical thinking that often in the courses, then they are not going to be as successful as those students who do use it.  

9V How To Explain Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking: disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence

Egocentrism: limited in outlook or concern to one's own activities or needs

Sociocentrism: tendency to assume the superiority or rightness of one's own social group

           As college students we have to learn to become more equipped at critical thinking. Critical thinking allows us to analyze, identify, and evaluate information. This type of thinking has more to it than the skills that go along with it; to be a good critical thinker a person needs to learn how to suppress their emotions and think logically. We have to learn how no to let our feelings get in the way of letting us think clearly about the information that is in front of us.

            There are barriers that go along with critical thinking, and they are egocentrism and sociocentrism thinking. Egocentrism is that reality is centered on oneself, meaning that when they try to analyze information instead of looking at it clearly they see it as all about them. The other barrier is sociocentrism, meaning group centered thinking; this thinking goes along with bias because they think that their group is better than everyone else.  

8A A Blog Above the Rest

There are many blogs that were written by other students that are well deserving of an A, and helped me find new ways to improve my blog. I chose to take a closer look at Blog Girl’s and Student Life of a Commuting freshman’s blog because those are the two that really stood out to and feel that are A+ material. Both of these blogs are worthy of an A and because they are clear, precise, and are able to get their opinion across to their readers without being critical or judging of the other side, and they also bring the other side into view.

             http://klaudano2013.blogspot.com

One blog that I feel is quality A+ work is Blog Girl, by Kelsey Laudano. All of the blog posts that I have read that had been written by Kelsey were all clear and to the point; you knew exactly what she was talking about and she never seems to get off track or go on a rant about something.  One post of hers that I found interesting was The How To’s For Success in College. In this post she reflects on what was talked about in class, but also brings some of her own views into play. She brought up the point that it is better to interact with people who have different views from you so you can gain a better opportunity to grow, which is something that I agree with.  Aside from her strong writing and interesting points, Kelsey also uses relevant pictures to go along with what she has to say.

             http://samanthamonaco.blogspot.com/

Another blog that I think to be A+ material is Student Life of a Commuting Freshman, by Sam Monaco.  Like Kelsey’s blog, Sam’s is also clean and simple; by having all of her blogs listed on the sidebar it makes it easy to find what you are looking for. She also uses interesting photos and incorporates quotes very nicely into her posts. In one of her blogs, The Hope For Change, she brings up two very different, but fascinating points. She talks about how parents can use the marshmallow test as guide to help teach their kids the importance of self-control, but then brings up the other point that parents are not going to be told how to raise their kids, and are going to do it how they want. After she brings up the two points, she adds a personal touch talking about what she would do if she had kids which I thought was a smart idea for her to do. 

                                  

8V How Do You Define Mastery?

Mastery: 1) possession or display of great skill or technique
              2) skill or knowledge that makes one master of a subject
IQ: a number used to express the apparent relative intelligence of a person
Perspective: the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed
                                     
   Many people believe that in order to become a master at something or reach mastery then that person needs to have natural talent. I can assure you that that is not true. For a person to reach mastery they can't just practice what they know, they have to continuously work on their weaknesses. This is important for college students to know because no one is born with natural talent, and anyone can achieve mastery at whatever it is that you want as long as you deliberately practice at it.
   IQ and perspective play a role in defining mastery. IQ may just be a number that tells you how smart you are, but it is important to know that your IQ doesn't limit your ability to master something. this is where perspective comes into play, because you can think you aren't smart enough to master something, or you can look at it the other way and work really hard towards something, and once you have you can experience the joy that comes with reaching your goal.

8I #11 Study Skills Enrichment

       For us first-year students, midterms can be a stressful time because we have no idea what to expect, but that's where the office of study skills enrichment comes in! I wondering what are some ways for me to prepare for my exams without becoming even more stressful than I already am?
      They had some really good advice that I would recommend you guys to try as well!! They suggested that you first need to know what the format of the test is going to be like, and use that as your platform to prepare. Once you know the format, then you need to schedule long periods of time to study at the same time every day, and you also need a place that is quiet and is free of any distractions. Hopefully these tips are as helpful for you as they were for me!!

                                                     

8B What Was "My Beloved World" About Anyway???

"An American Spirit with an Italian Attitude"

                 I have never been a fan of memoirs, and that is still the case after reading this book, but I do think Southern made the right decision by having every first year student read it. Throughout the book Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor,  talks about her struggle that came with having diabetes and living in a housing project, but she doesn't dwell on that, instead she focus on the perseverance  and the determination she had to do something important with her life.

                One thing that I think is important for us first –year college students is to take from this book, is never be embarrassed or afraid to talk about the struggles you are dealing with.  In Sonia Sotomayor’s book, she always kept her diabetes a secret from her friends until one day she was having a party and collapsed from having low blood sugar, and everyone watched her as she had to shove the cake into her mouth. She said that after that incident occurred, she never lied to anyone about having diabetes again, because that way there would be someone there to help in case she ever went into diabetic shock again. I think this is an important lesson for not just first-year college students, but as well as any college student because they should never be afraid to tell someone about the problems and issues they are facing, and should know that there will always be someone there to help and support them.

                Another important aspect that students should learn from Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir is never give up or let yourself get discouraged. Sonia Sotomayor grew up in a family that didn't have a lot of money, but she still ended up at an Ivy League school, and it wasn't because she was lucky, but rather determined. Ever since she was young she knew she wanted to be in law, and she battled through every adversity to get where she is now and that’s what we as students have to take away from this book. If you know what it is that you want to do with your life, do it, and don’t let the struggles that you might face become a roadblock to your success, but rather just a minor speed bump on your way to getting there.

                So, even though My Beloved World wasn't my favorite book in the world, it still taught me some valuable lessons when it comes to dealing with college, and can later translate into my life outside of school.  

                                    

Video Rough Draft

I still have four or five more people to interview                                               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXsNv41UXUE&feature=youtu.be

7A Everyone is Allowed to Fail

               Failure is a part of life, and sadly I feel kids are taught that failure is not an option. In our there should be more of an emphases on the importance of failure, and kids should feel that there is a safe place for them to go to for support when they experience failure.

              I think people have a fear of failure because they are taught at a young age that failure is bad, when in actuality it is something that will happen to all of us. People, in my opinion, feel pressure by those around them, whether it be; parents, teachers, friends, ect…, and because of that pressured to be perfect all the time, which can cause stress and that can be harmful to their health. A person can never experience growth if they haven’t tripped up along to getting to where they are now. In the article, The Fringe Benefits of Failures, JK Rowling talks about the idea of mastery and how she would never be as successful as she is if she never had failed. She goes on to say, “and so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life”, basically there is nowhere to go but up when you’re at the bottom.

               Failure is not something that we should be trying to protect ourselves from, although some believe we should, but instead embrace it. JK Rowling says, “I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized and I was still alive”; I think it is important for every person to face the hardships that comes with failure at least one to test your character. Again I’ll say that failure is a learning experience, and if a person can find that even when they have nothing they can survive, then they can easily make it by having everything. People need to lean that everyone makes mistakes, that is what makes us human, but also evolve as individuals.

7V What is Exactly is Failure?

Failure: omission of occurrence of performance
              a sate of inability to perform a normal function.
Ignorance: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness
Syllogism: a deductive scheme of a formal argument consisting of a major and minor premise and       conclusion.

                To me failure can mean two different things; someone who does something wrong but learns from their mistakes, and someone who is afraid to take risks. Failure relates directly to us as college students because really the only way to find what styles work for us, whether it is in our academic or personal lives, we had to at one point failed at some aspect to get us to where we are now. Thomas Edison, I think, hit the nail on the head when it came to the idea of failure, he said, “I did not fail, I only found 1000 ways how to not to make a light bulb”. If you learn from your mistakes, then you are truly never failing.

                Other words that relate to failure are ignorance and syllogism. The saying “ignorance is bliss”, is false in my opinion. A person needs to have the knowledge that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Syllogism is a type of arguments, and example would be, “all men are human, all humans are mortal, and therefore all men are mortal”. I think this is how people see failure, they see it as a mistake, and mistakes are bad, so that must mean that failure is bad; when in actuality failure is just a learning experience, and is what makes us humans.

7I #3 How to Deal With Stress?

Stress is something that affects every college students at one point or another, but the key is learning how to manage it. There are many factors that play into stress for students it could be related to leaving home for the first time, meeting new people, or the juggle of the new work load that you have.

There are many contributing factors to stress, but the only way you can manage stress is if you learn how to recognize it. At the Health Center, located across from the Moore Field House, they tell you that some ways of realizing you are stressed is if you are fatigued, feel overwhelmed, or if you keep getting sick, like with the common cold.

You might think it is easy to recognize that you stressed, but who do you deal with it? What are some good outlets?

                 There are many ways to manage stress that the people in the Health Center recommend. I know that when I’m stressed some of these methods work for me, like talking to my friends about my problems, it’s nice to know someone is there to listen and help, but also sometimes it is nice to just let it all out by having a nice cry, I feel that it relieves me of whatever it was that I was holding inside of me.

7B Oh How I Failed!

As the semester progress I find myself getting used to the work load and becoming more comfortable and confident with the work that I do, but if there is one aspect of college that I am failing at it would be getting involved!! I know every week we have the involvement blogs, but being a commuter student it is hard enough to just try and find time to get those done, let alone do anything else.  

In high school there is wasn't anyone that I wouldn't talk to, and was eager to join clubs and do volunteer work, but when I came to Southern, somehow that all changed and I can tell that it is effecting me in a way that I’m not too fond of. I was always around my friends having a good time, and there are people here who I just met that I talk to and would consider my friends, but I don’t have that same feeling that I did with my friends from high school, and I think that is because I am not involved and taking advantage of all of the social opportunities that Southern offers; but from now on that is going to change and I’m not going to be one of those students who just comes to class and then goes home.

I believe that the only way someone can change something that they don’t like, is identify the problem and be willing to work on it. There are so many clubs that Southern offers, there is something for everyone, and it is a great way to meet people who you know will have at least one thing in common with you, and that can be the foundation of a new friendship. I am setting a goal for myself to help me become more actively involved, by the end of this week I plan on trying to join at least one club that sounds interesting to me.

I think what the most important thing to understand about failure is that someone else is going through the same thing can be an important tool in helping you overcome it, and learn from your failures. Also a person cannot expect to grow from the failures if they don’t acknowledge them and put effort into fixing what they did wrong.

6B What Have We Learned and Where Do We Go From Here?

           Over the past 6 weeks we have been learning new concepts in class, and while they all seem to be different, they all a connected to helping us become not only better at school, but helping us become better problem solvers and dealing with life in general.

The first couple of readings started off slow and were basically about how to approach coming to college for the first time and how to deal with the changing environment, but as the weeks went on the readings, in my opinion, became more relevant to us as students and I was able to get useful information from them and transfer it into the work that I am doing for all of my classes, and I think that it has helped me a lot.

           One article stands out to me the most, and that is the one about mindset, because I believe to have any of the other elements talked about in the readings you need to have the right mindset? What exactly is that? And how do I get one? The right mindset means “you are about learning, not worrying if you’re incompetent” Interview with Carol Pweck. I don’t think that there is an easy way to achieve the right mindset; it is something that you have to work at and need to work through things that don’t come easy to you.

           The past week we have talked about grit, and how it relates to being able to work through tough problems, but again comes the idea that a person can’t be gritty if they don’t have another concept we talked about, which is motivation. In the Angela Duckworth article it says, “the grittiest students—not the smartest ones—had the highest GPAs”, in my opinion, the reason why this is, is because the smart students don’t have to work as hard because things come easy to them, where as their peers don’t have that luxury and do have to work harder. It would be easy for the those students who aren't as smart to just not try, but they do try because they are motivated, whether it be extrinsically or intrinsically, they still want to do better, so because of that they become that gritty and persistent student; and as a result they get the higher GPA because they worked for it.  

6A Learning from the Past

            It was my sophomore year of high school, right in the heart of midterms, and my dad was admitted to the hospital with a leg infection that later turned into a blood clot. I was already freaking out about my pre-calc midterm, because I have never been the best math student, but after having this happened I found myself becoming more and more distracted. I spent most of my time up at the hospital, and tried to use that time to study, but it just wasn’t working. My dad had already been on blood thinners because he has had a previous blood clot, so knowing how serious that one was before made it impossible for me to focus on anything else besides that.

            My test was in three days, and my dad had been in the hospital for five already, and although we spent the entire class period reviewing for the midterm, I found my mind wandering and never heard a word that my teacher had said, and I knew I was in big trouble. One the day of the test I knew I wasn’t prepared, and that idea was made clear when I was handed the test and I was only confident in about 10 of the answers out of 100. A few days later my teacher and our tests back, and on mine there was a giant “F”.

            After having that experience I realized that even though there are hard times going on in my personal life, the rest of the world is still going on, and I can’t let it affect what goes on in the other parts of my life, especially my academic. When finals came around I made sure that whatever was going on outside of my school life, I didn’t let it distract me from my studying. As a result of that I was able to get a “B” on my math final, which I was very thrilled about!

6V Persistence is Everything

Persistence: 1) firm or obstinate continuance in a course of acting in spite of difficulty or opposition
                   2) the continued or prolonged existence of something
Grit: 1) courage and resolve; strength of character 
        2) sticking with things over a long period until you master them
Stamina: the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort

What is persistence? And how exactly does it relate to me? Basically persistence is working through something challenging until you complete it, and it is something that you will need to help you get through college for the years to come. I know for me, the work that I have is not too challenging but is time consuming, but once I go onto other years and focus more on my major the classes will get harder, and that’s where persistence comes in. I know when in get into harder classes the work is going to pile up and if I don’t work through it, then I will not be a successful college student and that is something that I want to, as well as other students, not let happen.

Other words that go along with persistence are Grit and Stamina. Grit is very much like persistence, according to Angela Duckworth, it is defined as sticking with something for a long time until you master them. In order to have grit a person also needs to be persistent. Also stamina is very important when dealing with persistence; you can’t complete a challenge if you can’t sustain the effort needed to complete the challenge.