Learning Profile

There were many themes throughout the book. The first important theme was "adjusting to the culture of college." This involves adjusting from the high school setting to the college setting. College has the "Freedom Trap" where some students take advantage of the new-found freedom they have away from parents and it causes problems for them in school. Attendance is not taken as closely as it was in high school and many professors leave it up to the student to learn material and be successful in the class. Because of this students have to learn how to manage their own schedule and time. Goal setting is another part of adjusting to college. A number of different things can help with this. Surrounding themselves with positive, driven people, overcoming their fears, and moving out of their comfort zone are a few things that can help students reach their goals. Another common theme is "management;" this includes management of time and schedule to keep stress levels low. Along with this comes procrastination; procrastination destroys time management and is what causes stress. Not planning out things and waiting till the last second on tests and projects can cause a lot of stress. Management also includes managing college resources and money. Things like counseling, advising, and financial aid are all available at the college. In the financial aid department students can get information and apply for work study, loans, grants, and scholarships. All these things can help students pay for their college. Budgeting and managing their money is also important. Cutting down on spending and only getting things that are essential will help with excess spending of money. Also avoiding credit cards can help students stay away from debt. Having credit cards can seem like free money when they are really just spending money they don't have. The next theme is "knowing what works for you." Knowing the best ways to study and read to get the most out of the information is essential when preparing for tests. By knowing this students can cut down on study time and learn more in a short amount of time. Other things that are helpful are developing a note-taking system that is good for the student, coming up with test-taking and problem solving tactics, and becoming an active learner. The last theme is "prosper." Planning careers for the future and a student knowing their strengths and how to use them in a career can help them become successful. Keeping an open mind to things (which is developed in college) is something that will help students all through their life. Also by keeping an open mind it can form supportive relationships that students can depend on and help them make important decisions in life.

One of my strengths as a learner is to get things done completely to the best of my ability. I always put through a lot of effort whether it be a project or just an assignment I will get it done. Another strength is my note-taking. I can write down things in ways I know I will remember later. I also write them down so it is easy for me to study them later before a test. This leads me to studying for tests. I know how to study for tests for different subjects; for example when I study for my chemistry tests (which is my main subject) I read and take notes over the chapter the test is over. I don't do this the night before I do it gradually throughout the time we are learning the material. The next thing I do, usually about three days before the test, is complete all the suggested practice questions from the book. I always do them and then check and see if they are right before moving on. Finally the night or two before the test I look over my notes and see if there is anything I need to look at more in depth. One thing a student new to this class can use to learn is knowing how to manage their time according to their own personal schedule. Cramming and procrastinating will prevent the student from really learning the material. Another thing that would help them is to always keep an open mind to different classes, instructors, and students. Getting caught up in things that are different from your own beliefs can interfere with your learning and even enjoyment of college. Keeping an open mind can allow you to learn new things.

My main weakness as a learner is my reading. My main problem is reading things and comprehending them right away. I tend to read to quickly and then not realize what I read. I have to read things more than once and this makes me take extra time when studying just to read. I also get distracted when I read. My mind likes to wander and think about other things when I read, especially if I am not very interested in it. The skill of reading and comprehending is definitely something I wish I had. It would cut down on a lot of time when studying and it would make studying a lot easier. Another weakness I have at times is procrastination. I am very good and getting things done but sometimes I do not feel like doing homework and when this happens I put things off. If I am supposed to study for a test in a subject that I do not enjoy I sometimes put off studying until the night before the test. This is the same with long term homework assignments and projects. One main thing I have struggled with this semester is lab reports. I always get them done but I usually do them the day before they are do instead of doing them as we complete them in class. We always have a lab test over certain labs and the day of the lab test is when they are due. To get more out of courses in the future I need to work on my reading comprehension skills and learn to not procrastinate no matter how uninteresting the topic is.

My personality type is something that I learned from this class. Knowing what works for me and how I can learn things my way will help me through all of my life. Setting up schedules to manage my time and activities to reduce stress is also an important still that I read from the book and through the time management paragraph. My most important realization was when we explored careers on the Internet after taking the tests which matched my interests with careers that would work well with them. I got the chance to explore careers that fit my strengths and interests and I looked up careers that I didn't know very much information about and opened my mind to new paths. Also looking more into the steps to becoming a pharmacist for the academic plan paragraph helped my realize everything I need to do to prepare. I looked more in depth at the classes I am supposed to take so when I am signing up for classes I have a general knowledge of what I need to be in and I don't have to depend on someone else to know what they are doing. This is important to me because it is my future and it is stuff I need to be doing to be successful in life and to reach my goals. The most important skill I learned from this class was completing the reading exercises on the computer. It made me realize I need to work on it. I found ways to work on is and now I feel like my reading ability has progressed. This is significant because I will use reading all the way through college and all the way through life.

As I mentioned in the last paragraph I feel the reading exercises were relevant to my life because it exposed one of my weaknesses as a learner that I needed to pay attention to. The presentation of the online databases will help me as I continue being a student at Butler. If I had not had that presentation I wouldn't even know they are there for me to use. The career searching definitely had a relevance to my life because it concerns my future as a student and even afterwards. I am sure it had the same relevance to everyone else in the class also. One thing I felt was not very relevant to my own life was the butler resources paragraph. The case studies really didn't relate to me at all so it doesn't really have an impact on me personally and they aren't things that I could use. They may have helped another student that could identify with these problems or gave them information that they could give to a friend but I don't even have a friend that identifies with any of the case studies. Also some of the group discussions were not relevant because sometimes people were not willing to talk in the group and it is difficult to have discussions when no one talks. Sometimes we would start talking but it wasn't really about the subject and I never learned anything new from the group discussions.

In terms of the content I feel that the community service part should be dropped. It was nice learning about different things to do in the community and was others have done but many students don't have time to do community service and if they really wanted to take action for something and volunteer it would not be hard to research it on their own. The coping with change subject would have been more relevant (in terms of how to deal with change) if it was the beginning of the semester instead of the middle when most of us have already figured out how to handle things. The career section should be kept. Many students are undecided in their major and they can use this to explore options of careers. Something that could be added to the content that is especially relevant to the second half of the semester is how to prepare for finals and how to take them. Anything from reducing stress before finals to how to study for them could have been useful. One of the activities I think should be kept in the course is the reading assessment. I think everyone in the class benefited from this. The group activity that was a career checklist for personality types should be taken out. Sometimes the personality tests are not always correct and coming up with careers off the top of our heads is difficult to do. Interests and strengths better determine what career I want. I feel that the evaluation of the class was good. I liked the way we could do the blog on our own time. The rubrics are okay but I did not enjoy trying to hurry and just write something down to answer the rubric questions at the very end of the hour especially if I am trying to complete a different assignment from the class. Something I would suggest is making sure to discuss the 250-word paragraphs, i.e. linking websites and what you are looking for, in class rather than have us guess what we are supposed to do.

One major part of being successful in this class is not procrastinating. They need to make sure and do the paragraphs on the blog as the class progresses. Putting them off increases the work load and ability to complete the assignments fully and to the best of their ability. It is easier if towards the close of the class they do not have a major work load and they can relax more knowing they have it all done. Another thing is to stay on task in class and get as much work done as possible in class so there is less to do outside of class. Again this decreases the work load that they would have to do on their own time and keeps stress at a minimum. One suggestion for writing the paragraphs on the blog is to jot down ideas that address the particular issue and answer all of the required questions along with finding websites that also address each things they talk about in the paragraph. Having it all written out beforehand makes the paragraphs more organized and it makes it quicker to complete them. One quote I would go by in this class is "Just do the work!" Get all the required work done even if they do not think it is relevant to anything still do it and surprisingly they may learn something they didn't think they would learn from the assignment. This goes back to always keeping an open mind and doing these assignments to the best of their ability will allow them to expand their knowledge about many things.

This course taught me to complete assignments on time and by getting them done it was less stressful. I also learned things about my particular learning style and personality which is something I will always keep in mind and work on my weaknesses to become a more rounded person. Learning how to use the Butler "My Courses" tab will help me for any other classes that may require me to utilize it. If I had not used it in this class I wouldn't know how to use it for other classes. Although not all of the group discussions were very in depth some of them were relevant. I learned how to have group discussions about some topics and I learned how to keep an open mind to every one's ideas. Later in life I will be able to always be open to others so I can learn new things and they can learn from me. The group discussions helped me to find ways to communicate effectively with others which is always an important ability to possess especially if you what to get a point across to someone. Managing my time is something that will always help me live my life with ease. Throughout college with all the tests and assignments and then adding to that all of the appointments, daily plans, and work schedule being able to manage my time to each thing will reduce stress and help me keep my life in control. When I group up and have children I will be able to manage all their activities along with any of mine and making them all work together. Disorganization is not the way I want to live my life because it would cause too much unneeded chaos.