Sunday, September 30, 2012

My Speech to the Next Pink Panthers


Hello! As you all should well know, this week our topic is to write a speech that we'd like to give to our little sister class. I'm fairly certain that it will change between now and my junior, I still think that I have learned a lot since starting college.

Hello there littles. That’s so fun to say. My name is Allison and I'm a music education major. If you're coming in here anything like I did college has been a huge shock so far. It's a lot more work than you thought isn't it? I remember feeling completely overwhelmed my first big week of assignments, but you'll get through it. Also, the professors are a lot nicer than high school teachers said they would be. Since you're in a small college you'll get to know your professors pretty well and be a lot closer to them than you would elsewhere. The downside is that you have to actually be involved with your classes. Isn't that just terrible? Seriously though, it's a lot more fun than it seems right now. You'll get chances to do just about anything you want here. Just don't forget your reason for coming here in the first place. When you get frustrated just take some time to cool down and try again. I promise that all those assignments looming over your head aren’t nearly as difficult as you think. All you have to do is get settled into a routine and relax. As you get settled in you’ll learn what you professors expect of you and you’ll be better at handling your workload. The biggest thing is make sure that you do take some personal time, no matter what. If you neglect to take personal time and just work, work, work, you’ll go nuts. Trust me, I tried that for the first couple of weeks and it wasn’t pretty. Lastly, have fun! College is supposed to be a great time in your life. So go to some sports games, stay up late eating pizza and watching movies with your friends, and just be a college girl. You had to work hard to get here and you deserve to enjoy the benefits. Well, I guess that’s all I have to say. Good-bye!

Friday, September 14, 2012

Time Management

Hello there. This week's topic is, obviously, time management! Clearly this is something most, if not all new college students struggle with. Personally, my biggest time management problem is juggling the things I want to do with the things I need to do. This is been a big struggle for me because I was one of those students who never had to study through high school so I always had plenty of extra time. Now I am having to work harder because there is more work to be done there was in high school and the work requires more effort. More effort means more time. More time with schoolwork means less time for fun stuff. I've found that it is much easier for me to get a lot of work done with these tips. If you have a short break between classes try to get a few problems done. The more you do this the less you have to do when classes are over. If you have a long break between classes go find a place with few distractions (like friends who want you to go to Starbucks) and sit and work on your homework for a while. When you're working on your homework for a long time, stop about every half-hour and take a 10 minute break. If you have a lot of homework you can lengthen the time between breaks of shorten it if you only have a little. During these breaks you can reward yourself by getting a snack, talking to your friends, or looking up cute cat videos on youtube. Beware though, don't get caught up in your break, make sure that within 10 minutes you go back to work. After you've been working for a while, if you still havn't finished everything lessen the frequency of your breaks, it'll be incentive to get done. And lastly, don't allow yourself to procrastinate. I know you've heard this over and over but procrastinating can really hurt you. I'm not saying that you couldn't get it all done, but do you really want to be stuck in your room late on a Friday night finishing up that paper that's due at 10:00? Just tackle it a little at a time and it'll be done, eventually. See you next time.