self-assessment

At first transferring from high school to college was hard. In high school your lucky and a lot of the time all your teachers would remind you when things were due, accept things late and make sure you were doing all of your work. Here in college you are on your own. You have to be responsible and make sure you do the things that need to be done. You don’t get and extension to hand things in late and you aren’t reminded constantly when an assignment is due. At the very beginning every class gives out a syllabus and from then on you are to look at that and see when your things need to be handed in and what is due for the next class. The syllabus tells you from the first week of classes to the last and occasionally things are added and changed throughout the semester.

When I heard we had a class with the same group of students as our English I liked that idea. I thought it was a really good way to get everyone comfortable with the transferring from high school to college. In high school you have a lot of your classes with the same students. College is so big that you don’t get the same students unless you are able to sign up for the same class. Our class was a good one, we all got a long real well and we opened up with one another a lot. It was nice being with the same students and being able to make friendships. In a lot of my other classes I talk to people in there but in INQ and English we all get along and talk to one another. We are all comfortable in front of each other and we don’t feel weird expressing ourselves.

It took a little while for me to adjust to the syllabus. I wasn’t used to having to check something every week to see what was going on in class or what the assignments were. Teachers in high school tell you and you’re suppose to right it down. After getting used to the syllabus, I really like it. It’s a good way to become organized and being able to plan things out. I have always been an organized person and being able to write down when papers, tests, and projects are due is nice. You are able to get a head start on everything and you can plan out when you are going to do each so that way you aren’t doing everything at once and freaking out. I hated in high school when teachers would assign things at the same time and you have to rush to do everything all at once. In college if teachers assign things at the same time you know and can plan everything ahead because of the syllabus.

The biggest difference I see in college compared to high school is that you have to stay ahead of the game. You need to be on top of everything, checking when your things need to be handed in. In INQ we had to do blogs every week, this was new to me because I had never blogged before. I was nervous at first and really didn’t like the idea that people you really didn’t know could see things you were posting. Also what it was that I was going to write about. I liked when we had to write about something that was assigned. When we were able to write about anything we wanted I always figured out something to write about but it took me longer. Having something specific is good because it usually related to class and things we were discussing. After a while and looking at other peoples you see that you are all writing and expressing your own ideas and opinions on the different topics that Jen assigned us. It was cool seeing and reading everyone’s thoughts and all the different ways people made their blogs. This was a good way to practice your writing and being able to remember and make sure they were done on time and right.

I liked the Campus Safari’s. This was when you got to go around campus and do different things. Some being, go to a sports event, the multi-cultural center, radio station, the office of a major you are interested in, the library, heath center etc. These all got you to know where things on campus were and to check out different things. Some of the time when we went to different ones people were rude. For example when we went to the gym to see how many machines there were, the hours and classes you could take the people weren’t to friendly. This didn’t happen everywhere but it made you feel a little uncomfortable because you were doing this for a class assignment and they weren’t very helpful. A lot of the other safaris I did everyone was nice, and helped you out. I got a lot of information from many people. It was nice to have this activity because you get to know the campus more and meet more people.

Because of Inquiry I will remember to always check my syllabus. There were always articles on it that were to be read for the next class and usually we would discuss them and you would have to answer things Jen asked. If you didn’t read them you would be lost and when you had to hand in the class assignment and you had nothing you would get a zero. A lot of the articles were real interesting. Some articles were on time management, multi-tasking and others. They were all really good articles and you as a student could connect to them. We did a lot of connecting and reflecting of them in class.

Time management is key. Making time for everything is real important. In inquiry you learn this. When being assigned the mid term video I was really nervous. I had never made one before. The next week we had a rough draft due and some people had to show theirs. There were a lot of good videos some were more technology advanced than others but everyone tried their best and did well. This was also a way to go out of your comfort zone. You had to interview people that you may have never talked to before and ask them a specific question. I feel I learned a lot in Inquiry. Not just making sure I do all my assignments but how to manage time, going out of my comfort zone and doing different things around campus and to learn where things are. This class makes me understand how college will be and how you shouldn’t be afraid to express yourself. Everyone has their own ideas and opinions and its good to share them.