And the Learning Continues..

So it’s October 14^th and we are almost if not already at that halfway point of the semester. I think I have gotten a lot better at managing my time since I last blogged. It is so hard to stay on top of everything I have to do because not every class and activity goes together. I feel like my life is a constant balancing act and sometimes I really getting thrown off. When I was in high school I never really appreciated how nice it was that teachers planned tests and assignments together that way students wouldn’t get overloaded with work. Ha, only if college were the same way. Sometimes I look at my schedule for the week and think to myself, not one professor has mercy on me. After pointing the finger and blaming others for my stressful week ahead of me, I suck it up and start preparing for the 5 million tests and assignments I have due. I wish I could say that this only happens during midterms and finals but that would be a huge lie. Every week that passes by I am bombarded with assignments and tests. It NEVER ends. This semester in particular I feel like the wheels keep turning and I’m running to catch up.

I guess this feeling is quite normal for college students. Staying organized and planning ahead is essential for success. I cannot imagine where my grades would be if I treated everything like I did when I was in high school. This semester in particular I am in 18 hours and boy do I feel the burden of those hours. I’ve come to realize its not the actual time spent in class that causes me to be stressed, it’s that everything piles up outside of class and there is no such thing as sacrificing one priority for the other. I know a lot of people would tend to disagree with me on that statement but I have definitely tried to skim through some things and dedicate a lot to others, and that adds to the imbalance and in the long run causes bigger problems. This semester I have been focusing on how to keep balanced amongst my world of chaos.

The first thing I have learned is to separate everything into categories. Major, minor, core classes etc.   I focus on what is important about each of the classes that fall under those categories and the tackle the work from there. As a Speech Pathology major I spend a lot of time at the Speech and Hearing Clinic and that is the time and place where I get all of my work for my major done. I prep and make decisions about what I am going to do in my therapy sessions at the clinic, I take most if not all of my speech path classes in the clinic, and I turn all my reports and lesson plans to the clinic. I really have learned that the clinic is my friend and I need to know everything about it in order to stay successful within the major. As far as my psychology minor goes, I am in two psych classes this semester, which are actually going very well for me. I find both of the classes extremely interesting. Thankfully my Case Studies in Child Development class is one night a week, so I get that night to fully focus on that class and am actually learning a lot from it. My other class is Personality of Psychology, which is also a course that I really enjoy. I find myself constantly analyzing my own personality now and the personalities of others and a lot of traits and quirks about people make a lot more sense.  For my core class I am in Biology, and let me take a second to thank my high school self for taking AP Biology. I honestly believe my success in that class can be attributed to my past knowledge on the subject.

Overall one of the biggest things I have learned from this semester throughout all my classes is to be observant of what I learn and apply it to my everyday life. For example, this class has made me look at humor more than I ever had before. When I hear or watch something funny I stop and think why it is funny. Am I laughing because I am experiencing a cognitive shift? Is the humor self-deprecating? Terms and concepts I never thought of before now come full force during humorous experiences. In my speech path classes I am constantly taking what I am learning and applying it my therapy sessions and my professional writing documents. As far as biology is concerned, I guess that’s just the facts of life and I use the knowledge from that class unconsciously everyday, every hour, every second. I look forward to what’s in store in terms of learning experiences the rest of this semester.