9I: Advise me!

Meeting with my advisor was probably the best thing I've done all year. It was truly a wakeup call that I need to get on my game and really improve on my studies. Now that I know where I stand, I can come up with a way to better myself in the classroom and make my college stay truly more enjoyable. Thanks Mrs. Guarino!!!

9V: Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking- Critical thinking is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, partially true, or false. Critical thinking is a process that leads to skills that can be learned, mastered and used. Critical thinking is a tool by which one can come about reasoned conclusions based on a reasoned process.


Common Sense- Albert Einstein famously said "Common Sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

Analyze- To break down and formulate a final conclusion on something based on previous research you have done. 

9A: Critically Thinking

            Now say you decided to ask your nearest college professor or class braniac what exactly they thought “critical thinking” was.. you’d probably get an answer like “Critical thinking is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, partially true, or false. Critical thinking is a process that leads to skills that can be learned, mastered and used. Critical thinking is a tool by which one can come about reasoned conclusions based on a reasoned process.” Sounds fancy right?

            But critical thinking is something that is used to be able to really analyze and observe things that are around you, the process of observation. We think critically when we are trying to really go about digging deeper and finding the true meaning of something. College is all about critical thinking, especially in our inquiry class. Inquiry teaches us ways to observe everything that goes on in our everyday college lives to make our time in the university far more easy.

            The process of critical thinking really taps into everyone’s sense of “common sense.” Seems simple right? But so many people lack the thing called common sense. Common sense is basically just pointing out the obvious, being able to put a finger or some sense of idea on the obvious occurrences that take place every day in your life.

            Common sense allows you to quickly analyze basic things enabling you to make th right decisions upon completion of something. Almost like critical thinking, critical thinking enables you to break down and analyze something, therefore letting you find the proper things out about something, which then allows you to make the right decisions about something or formulate the proper conclusion. Albert Einstein once said “Critical Thinking is 'rational optimization' of 'rational' aspects. It provides a 'rational' optimum, for instance not considering most emotional aspects. And often ignoring most cultural differences.”

9B: Midterms

  To no surprise at all my midterm grades werent anywhere that I would presumably  like them to be. It's really no ones fault but my own, I've been slacking. Failing to complete all of my work and failing to really study as much as possibly should. 

  Inquiry, a class I should definitely have an easy A in, is my lowest grade. Why? Because of my laziness and deciding to slack off and not complete all of my work on time and thoroughly. Step aside from inquiry and take time to look at my history and media studies grades. Both A's.... Why? Because I've seemingly applied myself and done what I've had to do in each of those classes to succeed. Work your way over to math.... Lower than I'd like, but it's no secret.. I'm absolutely awful at mathematics. (Reasons why I'm in 95, the lowest level of math offered at this institute of higher learning) but is that an excuse to have a D? A high D..!! nevertheless still a D. Now move on to journalism texhnology.... C-... Simply because I obtain an inapt ability to work any type of electronic technological device (especially a computer) except an IPhone. 

   Though my grades as of now don't show how smart I am, they most definitely show that I'm lazy. Luckily I have 7 more weeks to pull these grades up as high as possible! Wish me luck.

YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgSK1o_mBH0&feature=youtu.be

Here it is!

7B: College so Far… Nothing but Failure

               

                To those who said college is a blast most definitely lied or were Albert Einstein’s son. It’s far from fun and nothing but a “blast” of failure.  Everything was so easy in high school, ya know, I just coasted.. did what I had to do to get by and still managed to graduated top ten in my class. I formed a world of bad habits that seem nearly impossible to break simply because everything works and moves so fast in college. You’re basically your own teacher, and if you don’t formulate some sort of schedule to keep to then you’re almost guaranteeing yourself failure.

                I have failed at nearly everything I’ve attempted to do in math and I’m almost okay with it at this point, I don’t how knowhow much more failure I can possibly use as motivation without seeing any progress anymore. From getting extra help with the teacher to having my roommate tutor me, nothing seems to be working. I’ve accepted it, but since I absolutely hate failure I’m determined to bring my grade up and show some sort of success in the class. While I’m on the topic of failure, inquiry.. inquiry is a class that I love going to. I love the group discussions, and I love the readings, but the blogs are something that’s completely foreign to me. I’m slowly starting to improve at it but it really all just seems to come with repetition and keeping a schedule that gives me enough time to complete all four blogs.. ON TIME.

                I feel like the first semester of college is hard for a lot of students, and I know for a fact that I’m not alone. So I’ll just find a schedule that enables me to balance school work, football, some sort of social circle, and eating and sleeping. 

7A: How Many Times Have You Failed?

                I grew up with an NFL playing stepfather who seemed to be great and succeed at everything.. you could imagine the pressure. Pressure to be great just like him, pressure to dominate at every aspect of football just like him.. I’m convinced that his greatness is the only thing that kept me from playing football until high school. I said to myself I don’t want to be great like him, I want to be remembered for what I’ve accomplished, for the athlete that I am. I never wanted to stand in the shadow that was to the far right of the spotlight of glory that stood over my stepfather’s head every step he took. How could I ever live up to the greatness and glory of the “greatest athlete to ever play in Waterbury, Ct” or the “greatest wide receiver to ever come to Southern Connecticut State University”?? Seemed impossible to me, so gymnastics was my scapegoat.. My way to be great at something I wanted to be great at. I was scared of letting him down, scared of failing to be what he was.

                A time passed where I said to myself I can’t be afraid to fail to live up to what he was, so I used his success and greatness as motivation. It motivated me to never look at failure as an option. My stepfather said the same words to me at every gymnastics competition and every sporting event I ever competed in.. “Pick your head up and get going.. failure isn’t an option for those who want to be great. Because when greatness is around the corner, big time players make big time plays.”  I’ll never forget the first time he said that to me. I was 11 years old competing in my first nationals ever at the University of Florida and it was the day I experienced my first failure ever in the sport of gymnastics.. I came in second in the all-around and those word stuck with me. It seemed so weird to me because I had just failed and here he was telling me failure isn’t an option.. he motivated me to be great, motivated me to take that loss to heart and take it extremely personal; the loss hurt him more than it hurt me; I’m convinced of that.

                High school came and I decided to play football, unafraid of failure I was out there playing football to have fun, not worried about his achievements just trying to have fun and try new things. Out there just playing led me to one of the greatest high school football careers in NVL history. I set records, won athletic accolades, broke his records.. and here I am now at my father’s alma mater, in college using his records that he has at SCSU as motivation to never accept failure even though I know that the greatest fail every day of the their lives.

                Today I feel like people are teaching that failure is an okay thing to kids at such a young age, giving out trophies to everyone on losing team, telling kids that there was no winner or loser. That’s not okay. No matter how young a kid is, he needs to know the final score of the game he just played in, he needs to know that he just lost.. because when he enters reality and loses for the first time he shouldn’t think it’s okay. Kids are too protected from failure. I know in class I always say it’s unacceptable to fail, which it is, but if you’re going to fail and lose at least acknowledge it and use that failure as the biggest motivation possible.

                Failure has been my motivation since day one, I’ve failed so many times that I’ve seemingly become successful from it; it’s weird how things work in the end. Like Michael Jordan once said "I've failed over and over.. and that is why I succeed."

6V: Persistence

What is persistence?
Persistence is the inner drive you possess to be able to keep going and push through anything, no matter what the circumstances are, no matter how tough it may seem at the time.


What is Grit?
The ability to be able to stick with something over a long time until you master it. Grit requires a strong sense of stamina both physically and mentally as well as passion; you can't stick with something unless you ae truly passionate about it.

What is Retention and Attrition?
Retention- The continued use of something in ways of being able to control it.
Attrition- The act of over time wearing someone or something down by reducing the strength or effectiveness of it.
Retention and Attrition are both used in the military and the grit scale is used to predict the rates of each.

6B: Where to Next?

                Over the course of a six week period we have learned many new concepts that seemingly all have their own meaning and what they stand for, but in the same instance all of the concepts we have learned and gone over are somewhat connected in their own way. When I first started taking inquiry, I instantly knew that class could be a general study of literally anything; anything that we’re willing to “inquire” about.

                The class started off at a slower pace and really seemed as if it was just generally explaining us to what college is and what we’re up against for the next four years. Without inquiry and the things I’ve learned about college, I would’ve came into college with the same old high school mindset, and just tried to skate by.. wing everything. I was wrong, so far college is the hardest thing I’ve seemingly had to do in my life; it’s not like high school where teachers were there spoon feeding us information and basically holding our hand through everything.

                Throughout the past week we’ve been discussing grit and persistence, which are the characteristics in which enable someone to work through problems and face conflict head on, because as Margaret Heffernan says, opposition is a good thing and if you’re able to break the fear of conflict you’ll then be able to do your best thinking. Persistence and grit really ties in to one of our previous lessons in motivation. Without motivation and the drive to want to do something, being gritty and persistent is something that can’t really take place. Whatever your motivation is, it is needed to keep pushing forward.

As the half way point through the first semester comes to a close, I’m interested in seeing what else we exactly learn or “inquire” about next. Hopefully they’ll all be useful things I can use in my everyday life at school. 

6A: Challenges... Prozac & Xanax

                Growing up was hard for me, losing my father at such a young age left a gap in my life that really has yet to be filled, even with a stepdad who loves me unconditionally. As I got older I showed signs of early age depression and “chronic anger” as the therapist said.. In short I couldn’t really control my temper and the littlest things absolutely set me off. It never really showed until early in high school, my temper had seemingly started to take over. I was getting into fist fights during football games and freaking out on the baseball field when things didn’t quite go my way. Finally they got me another therapist and she insisted that I take medication, Xanax for the temper and anxiety and Prozac for the depression and mood swings. At one point they even insisted I had a mild case of bipolar disorder.. for those who don’t know what that is, in short, it’s chronic mood swings. The whole idea of taking pills to keep me “normal” just wasn’t really something I liked too much and overtime it seemingly just wasn’t working. My temper was uncontrollable, and my anger worsened; which was only a good thing to some extent when I was on the football field. My immediate family were the only people who I never really freaked out on. Four years of high school as a hotheaded, temper ridden student was far from the easiest thing to do.

                Finally my senior year came and I just needed to get off of my medication, it turned me into a dull, feelings-less person.. I felt nothing and had no emotion toward anything. I finally stuck with my therapist and worked harder than ever to make it so I was no longer on my medication and finally was able to control my temper. Knowing that I was off to prep school on my own for the first time, my mom truly worried if I would be able to control myself without fighting or getting kicked out of the school. It was the hardest thing ever, but it was well worth the hours of therapy and worth all of the holes in my wall, because now I’m off on my own, in college, playing sports and maintaining my temper… oh and I’ve now been off my medication for close to a year.