Final Blog Post

I have learned a lot about myself over the first semester.  It is a lot harder to get good grades in college than it is in high school.  Sure you have less time in class but you also have a lot more work.  In high school my thought process was ok imp already in class ill just do my work.  In college it is a lot different.  Most of my work gets done in my dorm which can be a very distracting place.  There is a TV five feet away that has an Xbox 360 connected to it.  That is always very tempting for an 18 year old who has trouble paying attention.  Next semester I am going to try and stay more focused on my goal which is get very good grades. My biggest challenge in college so far has definitely been time management.  In high school I did not have to do much of this because my schedule was pretty much mapped out for me.  School, gym, work, and then homework.  I pretty much did this every day.  But in college it is a lot different.  I have to plan my own schedule of when I am going to do what.  In the first semester this got interrupted by spontaneous Conn trips or just being annoyed by friends.  Next semester I am going to try and do all my work as soon as I get it so I do not have to worry about getting my work done.  I know it will not be easy but I know I can do it.  I think my biggest achievement so far has been making great, lifelong friends.  The past four months have hands down been the best fourth months of my life.  We had a crew of about ten people who were always together and always having fun.  Although a couple of these kids are transferring next semester I will never forget them and will never forget the good times we have had.  I consider myself a nice and friendly person; this is probably why I made such good friends.  Like I said before a couple of the friends I made are transferring at the end of the semester and a few more are talking about transferring at the end of the year.  So I am going to have to make new friends next semester and year.  I know I won’t have a problem doing this, but at the same time I am already settled in and have friends I like.  I don’t want them to leave or make new ones, but that’s life.  My grades this semester have been good but not quite where I want them to be.  I got low B’s and a couple of C’s in my classes.  These are passing grades but I would like to have done better.  I always set my goals high because that is just who I am.  I knew that the first semester would not be the easiest grade wise because I had to make some major adjustments.  It was my first time living on my own without my parents.  This was a hard adjustment.  I also had to make all new friends because not a lot of kids from my high school go to southern.  All of these things took up a lot of time.  That was time I could have spent studying or doing homework.  However, the second semester I am adjusted to living on my own and still have some friends here, so I can spend more time getting work done and focusing more of all of my school work.

Final Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y5wrG5nFxw&feature=youtu.be

Learning Communities

I thought that the learning communities at southern were a good idea.  Making friends can be a very scary and difficult process for freshman at Southern.  So putting the same people in two classes is a good idea because it gives them more time to interact each other. This is very important because they these classes are not the easiest at southern and you will most likely need help in your classes.  Therefore it is a good idea put the same kids in the same classes so they can help each other try and pass the class.   We all may not have been the best of friends but the one thing we all agreed about and could bond about is that our anthropology teacher was not exactly the best.  Even though this may not be the best thing we could bond our, but this crazy teacher did bring us together.     The one thing I am going to miss about the learning community is the friends I made.  I do not know if I will have classes with some of these kids ever again so I could end up losing touch with some of them and I do not want this to happen.  Another thing I am going to miss is the lack of homework that we got in these two classes.  When we did get homework in anthropology it was always very little, such as readings from the book or write a paragraph about something.  In inquiry we did not get that much homework either.  Mostly all we had to do was blog three times a week. I also am going to miss making videos.  I will most likely not have to make a movie in any other class.  I find making videos a very fun and informational way of learning

My Life After College

Most kids are not thinking about what life is going to be like after college.  They are just trying to get good grades and get a degree.  I may think that I have a busy schedule now but once college is over its going to be a lot more hectic.  After college it would be very nice if I could hit the Powerball and win around 200 million dollars.  However I know that this is very unrealistic and most likely will not happen.  Plan B for me is to get a job.  My uncle is a very successful accountant at Price Waterhouse Cooper in Albany New York.  He is getting up there in age and is thinking about retiring from that job and open his own accounting firm.  For most people this would not be easy, but since he is so experience he could do it.  All three of his daughters are going to school for accounting and so is my sister.  So his plan is to either retire from his firm and start his own, or when we all graduate he would try to get us an internship at Price Waterhouse Cooper.  I am very thankful for this because most people do not have an opportunity like this.  Nobody knows what the economy is going to be like in four years and how easy it is going to be to get a job.  I am also going to need to find a place to live.  I am not going to want to live with my parents so I have work hard during the summers and save up enough money for an apartment.  I am also going to need some form of transportation.  My plan is to work hard during this spring and summer and hopefully save up enough money for a down payment on a car and then make payments every month.  

My Final Video Project

One of the hardest things to do when you’re making a movie is how is make it creative.  You want the video to be unique and your own, so this can be a tough process.  Some will spend countless hours brainstorming because coming up with a unique and creative idea can be tough.  For my midterm video I just interviewed people about what creative thinking is.  I like how this video turned out, but I know that I am a lot more creative than that.  I had a handful of different idea for this movie.  I thought about making a music video where I would write some raps and have my friends sing them, but I decided that this would be to hard and time consuming.   My next idea was to spoof a popular tv show.   I had to pick a show that most everyone watches or knows about.  The first show that came to my mind was Jersey Shore.  I was going to have some of my friends be the characters and get into fights about exercising or eating healthy.  There is also a lot of alcohol consumption on this show.  So I was going to use the characters as an example of what not to do if you want to stay healthy.  Although I have not completely ruled this idea out I don’t not think I will do this one. There are millions of different spoofs of this show on the internet because it is so popular and they are easy to make fun of.  One idea that I think would be fun and will get my point across is sort of a talk show format.  I could interview experts on health and nutrition while spoofing a talk show such as the view or The Oprah Winfrey Show.