“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” –C.S. Lewis

Before beginning my time here at Southern, I was anxious and confused. Although these feelings were not unique to only me, I had a fixed mindset that they were. In my mind I truly believed that everyone else had life figured out. They knew what they wanted and what they wanted they would achieve. I never imagined I had that same capability. I by no means had confidence in my own ability. Sure, I had ideas for the future. Maybe do this, maybe do that. But nothing was for certain and that above all else, frightened me. 

As my first semester began all of these feelings began to melt away almost as effortlessly as they came. Being at Southern felt so right for me and this began to clear my head. My experience here taught me things about myself that I never previously believed. First, I discovered that even though my exact future career path may be foggy, my life has purpose. Everything I do has a purpose and knowing that is the most reassuring feeling in the world. This realization has taught me that no effort of mine will go to waste. The second thing I have discovered about myself from these first few months is that I have the ability to do well in anything I chose. Truly believing that has given me a tremendous amount of determination. I have developed a work ethic like I never had before. The amount of time, effort and concentration I put into all aspects of my academic life have greatly expanded and I could not be any happier with that. I know this will give me the perseverance to be successful right now and in the future. The last thing I have learned about myself is that I can have a life outside of academics and not lose sight of either. For the first time in my life I have a job. I never had to juggle school and work before but I have made a healthy balance with both. With working at least 25 hours a week and being a full time student, I do have my hands full. I do not need a job but I love my job. I do it for the satisfaction it gives me and I do not allow it to get in the way of doing well in school. This shows me that I have my priorities straight and I am willing to make the effort to allow this to work out.

Among all of these positive lessons I have learned, I have not been challenge free. The most significant challenge I have faced so far is in my mathematics course. I have never been any sort of math genius but I always did okay, focusing my time and effort in this area. I was nervous for what my math class at Southern would be like. I was placed in MAT102, which I was happy about, but I still did not know what to expect. My grades in this class were much higher than I expected but they did not come without work. I worked so hard to receive the good grades that I did and I am extremely proud of myself. I would do so many practice problems before each test to assure that I had everything under control. Although stressful at times, it paid off and I know I met the challenge.
              Along with this challenge, came many achievements. I have had a tremendous amount of success this past semester but my number one achievement would have to be my ability to get straight A’s. It took me up until my senior year in high school to achieve all A’s so to do that in my first semester in college, is really impressive to me. For the first time in my life I could not be more proud of myself. For once, in my academic career I can say I honestly gave it my all. No slacking allowed. I owe most of my success to high school. It has prepared me so well for Southern and everything it has thrown at me since the beginning. It has developed the best work ethic and study habits in me. It has taught me how to sit down and complete something without distraction. My high school really gave me all the discipline I needed to be successful in college. The habit that I have gotten into is: get it done when it is assigned and check it off the list. I make a list every week, sometimes everyday of assignments I need to get accomplished. It is such a relieving feeling when I complete a task and get to move on to the next.
          Personally, I am way beyond where I hoped I would be at this point in my college career. Yet, there is always room for improvement. I can always do more. Next semester will be different however. I will have new professors and classes, not knowing what to expect all over again. I hope to make a larger effort to use the resources available to me on campus. The resources I have taken advantage of this semester were extremely helpful and provided me with such a positive experience.
          As for my future here at Southern, I expect only great things. I am going to continue to try my best and keep my grades high. I know that having all A’s my entire time in college is going to be close to impossible so I do not expect myself to do that. I just want grades that I can be proud of. But more importantly, I want my grade to reflect how much I have truly learned in each of my classes. I want to take away important lessons that can be applied to my future career plans so that I am as prepared as possible. College is a time of preparation for the future. I want to be challenged so I can grow. But most of all, I want to gain experience that will be vital to who I am for the rest of my life.The number one thing I have learned here at Southern is, you get what you give. Work hard and you will have something wonderful to show for it. 

Campus Safari #2: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose

At the very beginning of the school year, my Wellness professor recommended a book to us. He said it would help us understand our course material better but also provide us with some important information to apply to our own life. This book is Drive written by Daniel Pink. The book focuses on the subject of motivation. It talks about how some are motivated by external reward such as money or power while others have more internal reasons to be motivated. Either way these motivators are our personal secrets to “high performance” in all that we do. Pink says that there are three aspects of motivation: autonomy, mastery and purpose. This book is filled with ideas on how to achieve the ultimate levels of motivation. In both Wellness and Inquiry we focused on what motivates us and why so I believe this book is very relevant to those classes. I can apply what I already know about the subject while reading this book if I decided to do so. Locating the book was very simple, especially after having our INQ class at the library. Overall, I am fairly self-sufficient when it comes to using the library. 

Assessing Success & Failure

Weakness is such a sore topic for some. They see no positive from it, only the criticism and vulnerability.  They see this weakness as failure. However, when reflecting on weakness I believe you discover so many strengths of yourself. Your weaknesses bring out all the positives in your life. For example, you may not being doing well in one class but in contrast you are doing outstanding in another. We must accept our weaknesses for what they are but not allow them to define who we are.

My biggest weakness or “failure” would be my work habits over the last two weeks. I have gotten so drained from work and school that I began to lose motivation. I would never choose to NOT do my homework, but I began waiting longer to do it. This made me realize how important staying on top of your work is. It also showed me that my previously positive work habits made me completely stress free. This was only a minor bump in the road and I am back on the track that has been working so well for me.

When looking back on the semester, I would say it has been smooth sailing. There has been greater “ups” for any one single “down.” I am extremely proud of all my accomplishments thus far as a college student. However, the most significant of all my success was receiving my Mid-term grades. I devoted my time into the preparation for each of them and the outcome truly showed that. After receiving all A’s I had a lot to be grateful for. I was one of two people who received an A on my Psychology exam. This made me ecstatic. This is the field I plan to go into when I graduate from Southern so this was such a positive first step in the right direction. Although this step is only small in my whole college experience, it meant a lot to me and I could not be happier.

Anticipating the End

I began writing my final blog post without any real structure at all. I simply let all my thoughts and feelings about the semester just flow out of me until I had something quality to work with. I am about half way done with it but I still have so many things I wish to say.

I began to think about all the important life lessons I have learned from this Inquiry class and started to apply them to each of my experiences here at Southern. I wanted to make a real connection between what I have learned this past semester in my reflective blog post. I believe it is important to make this post very personal since it is 100% focused on me. I plan to include examples and short anecdotes of my experiences. I also plan on including tips I have gained throughout the semester. Although this blog post will have a narrative style, I still want my audience to learn something from it. I believe that this blog post will force its readers to examine themselves. I want my audience to take away something from it and apply it to how they structure their own lives.

Separate from the informative aspect, I want it to be creative. After reading Twyla Tharp’s book I have learned many more ways to express my creativity. This book has made my own creativity come into my mind more frequently. I believe I have become more conscious of this so I am going to try very hard to make my final post as creative as possible.

Lastly, I want this blog post to be a true reflection of all the hard work and effort I have put into this last semester. I want it to show my perseverance to succeed and my conscientiousness towards my academics. I have done well on all my blogs so far so I want this one to over-shine everything I have done before. I want it to be unique and significant to me. I want to finish writing it and not feel as if a whole part of my time at Southern was missing.