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“How do you define success as it relates to your past year or semester in college?” For me personally, success has always meant being the best at what you do. But the last year I have had to learn that you can be successful without being the best. Throughout a season of basketball that had a lot of hardships, I struggled with knowing what my role on the team was. I had inconsistent playing time and a lot of ups and downs. Our team was very successful, but it was still a hard year for me. I didn’t understand why things that were happening were happening. I felt like I was letting myself down and not doing what I was capable of. I had to reevaluate what success truly meant to me. I hadn’t been the best, but I had tried my hardest and showed my character through ups and downs. Success for me was now about how hard I was trying and how I was responding to hardships, not about being the best.
“Reflecting on your past year or semester what did you learn about yourself?” There have been a lot of ups and downs in the past year. I learned that to grow you must go through hard things. The past year of my life has been a lot of changes and a lot of new things to adapt to. From moving away to college, struggles in school, missing my family, having to make new friends, and being on the basketball team. There have been so many things to learn and get used too, but I think the thing I learned more specifically is how to authentically be myself through those hardships. Throughout the year I learned that trying to be someone else or trying to please other people leaves you with nothing. Choosing to live my life based on my personal beliefs in God and trusting that no matter what happens his plan for me is the best thing has taught me so much. God puts you through hard things for a reason and that’s to grow and to change into the person he wants you to be. College has been difficult, but I wouldn’t change the experience for anything. I have learned so much about myself and have grown into a more mature woman through it. Gods plan is always the best plan.

 

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Charley Wroblewski

Mrs. Toonen

First-Year Writing T-R

19 March 2024

Building connections in college

 

Overall college has been fun both socially and academically. Overall, I would rate it probably an 8 or 9. I have made a bunch of friends and we do a lot of different things together. I met them all when we would play sand volleyball almost every night it was really fun. As it got colder we started just hanging out in the lounge of my friend’s dorm watching movies and playing games overall just hanging. out and going to the UWGB men’s and women’s basketball games. They have done well this year. With the girl’s team making it all the way to March Madness they have been super enjoyable to watch. I have made great friends and it has been super fun so far. I hope it stays just as fun as it has been.

Educationally it has been good, all of my professors have been good and taught well. My favorite professor so far was probably either Dr Shelton or Dr Kleps. Dr Shelton was my first-year seminar teacher and he always had a good energy to him I felt like I could ask him for help if I ever needed anything. Dr Kleps was my sociology teacher. He made all of the lectures really enjoyable and was able to relate the lessons to things that we were actually experiencing in life. I don’t think I have had a bad professor yet so that is good. Overall this has been a great first year and I’m super excited to come back next fall it should be really fun I think.

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A big stressor for me in school is time management. I have always been bad at managing time. I have tried plenty of things to better my skills such as setting goals or carrying around a daily planner, but nothing seems to work. Granted I get everything done when it is supposed to be I often still cram stuff together. It is unhealthy and mentally exhausting. I am slowly improving my time management, and although it is little at a time I am already noticing a difference in my mental health. The first couple of weeks in school were going great, I was staying on top of my work, and I felt like I was managing my time. All my classes but one were in person and I was intimidated by the one online class. I didn’t believe I could succeed in an online course.  

                todoreminder.com 

Personally, online classes were not an option for me. I wanted nothing to do with online classes, so my advisor made sure my classes were all in person. A week or two before the semester started, I got an email that the class was being moved to an online course. I pondered on the news for a couple of days going back and forth with myself debating on dropping the class or sticking it out. I decided to stick it out and hoped for the best. The most intimidating thing about the class being online was that it was accelerated. I continued to keep up with the work from all my classes for the next couple of weeks. Until the online course workload started to get overwhelming and I decided to push other class work off for the online course. I would get irritated and emotional because it was taking me so long to understand what was being taught, and there were multiple things due in a day EVERYDAY! Most days I wouldn’t finish right until the last minute. I would go to bed without doing work for any other class. It caught up to me and I had to stay up all night a few nights in a row to catch up on the work I pushed off. I realized how bad my mental health gets when I don’t make enough time to do work for each class. My online course is finished now, and I am trying new techniques to help me manage my time better to take the stress and the mental load down a few notches. 

If I had to rate college using a scale from 1-10, I would give my college experience an 8. Coming here I had no idea what to expect, but things turned out to be better than I could have ever imagined. First, I love my roommate; we get along perfectly and she has turned into one of my closest friends, even like a sister. It makes living on campus so much easier because I know that I have her even though I cannot see my family or friends from home often. Having her as my roommate, time seems to move quickly because of how enjoyable it is. Aside from the relationships I have made, there is a sense of freedom and personal development that I have discovered here at college. I can take any classes I want, flexibly manage my time, and I can enjoy the independence that comes with making my own decisions. I have found that I do much better with my studies when I do not have the stress of overbearing parents and high-school teachers who watch my every move. There is so much to appreciate about my college experience.  

However, there are still a few disadvantages. The food in the cafeteria is bad. There are rarely any fresh or healthy options. Whenever I see them preparing the food, it either comes from a can or out of a bag from the freezer. There have also been multiple occasions when the chicken is still raw or has the feathers still connected to it, there is hair in the food, and the dishes are not clean. On top of the unhealthy food, my residence hall is very loud; my roommate and I struggle to fall asleep some nights because people are stomping or screaming. Along with the noise, the residence hall is also very dirty. Always smells of cigarettes, garbage, and spoiled food. Although there are a few downsides to this new lifestyle, I am happy with the new me and I am prepared to watch how things unfold in the next four years.

My overall college experience is a seven on a scale one through ten. Many college students are on their own for college and live by themselves. For me, I commute to school, so I never feel alone or worried that I cannot get a healthy meal. I really enjoy being able to have a fresh cooked meal my parents made, and sometimes I cook for them. I can use a full kitchen and prepare a meal I otherwise wouldn’t have in a dorm. However, because I live at home, I am not able to meet as many friends that I would have if I lived on campus. This makes it feel like I am missing the ‘college experience.’ I am seeing my friends post on social media the different things they are experiencing while I am at home having a very different experience. While, sometimes living at home makes me miss out on college, it has also taught me a lot and allowed me to mature more.

By not living on campus, I have been able to see my high school friends and continue making money. I can visit my friends whenever and have a ‘college life’ without paying thousands of dollars. I am very grateful to have the friends I met in high school because they constantly invite me to come down to their college for the weekend.  By visiting on the weekends, I can get a taste of college and what it is like living in the dorms. Because I am commuting, I can keep my jobs I had in high school. Throughout the week when I am not at school, I work on my family farm as an office assistant. And, on the weekends I spend my nights working at a local bar and grill. This allows me to make money I may have not been able to if I was living in the dorms. Overall, college for me looks a lot different than other people, but I still rate my experience a seven out of ten.

Relaxing > Working

            There are many pros and cons of online courses. Personally, I think the pro and cons are pretty equal just, the hardest part is discipline. There are many pros, but it takes discipline to make those pros effective. One pro is online accommodating someone’s schedule whether it be sports, work, or anything else one can have going on. This is super nice for me because I am an athlete here and having these online classes are needed because of my practice schedule. Another pro is getting to rewatch lecture videos. If there is something that I don’t understand I can just go rewatch the lecture. This is super nice because then I don’t have to go into office hours all the time or make an appointment with my professor for them to answer questions. Lastly, I feel like I get more sleep when I have online classes because I don’t have to wake up as early to go to class and that makes me more energized to do my classes later in the day.

On the other hand, there are also many cons to online classes like procrastination which I sadly suffer from. Yes, it’s nice to not have to go into class all the time, but then you are also home all the time where there are many distractions, like TV, video games, and roommates. These things make me put off watching my lectures because I don’t have a strict schedule and I also get sidetracked very easily. Another con that happened recently for me is lecture videos not loading. My chemistry lecture videos would play for two minutes then buffer and never load again. This is very annoying because the time I want to get work done I can’t because technology decides not to work. Lastly, just having the motivation to get out of bed and watch the lectures or homework is the hardest part. I struggle with this, and I am trying to get back on the horse and get my stuff done then I can go relax or do whatever I want to do.

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Last semester consisted of several times where I lost my momentum due to self-inflicted mistakes. These mistakes included procrastination, tardiness, and lack of motivation to even attend class. The biggest reason I lacked motivation came from my sleep schedule. Falling asleep at 1:00 in the morning on most nights was not going to give me the jump start I needed to get through a day. To help fix this, I needed to get to sleep earlier. During this second semester, I have classes scheduled at an earlier time than the previous semester. This has led to me going to bed before midnight on most nights so I get nearly nine hours of sleep. While motivation has become more fruitful for me during second semester, tardiness has also gone down with it. My job has a saying that is: “To be 15 minutes early is to be on time.” That has led me to arriving at class as early as the professor will let me. Sometimes, it’s twenty minutes early.   

The biggest problem I have yet to work on this semester, ironically, is procrastination. Grades drop due to not having a paper or blog entry submitted on time, and they drop fast. The biggest contributor to procrastination for me is my inability to write for long periods of time. It becomes quite tedious having to keep on writing, when I feel most of it is going to be changed and revised later anyways. Because of this, I feel the best solution is to lock my phone, work away from anything that may visually or physically distract me. Sticking to completing my work while I have time and resting once it’s done is my biggest mistake to fix while I am still here in the second semester.

 

 

 

 

           

I’ve got a secret (not a secret whatsoever)

Everybody knows UWGB is a heavy commuter college. It’s busy in the day, but in the off hours, it can be a ghost town. Many people see this as a drawback, and many of my on-campus peers find it hard to make friends. As someone who has attended as many events as possible, I can guarantee that this school is almost always busy. Many people don’t know this, but the campus has an app called “Involve” that shows every club event. Most, if not all of these clubs just want people to attend their events. By attending events, you can also earn points which you can cash in for Phlash cash or prizes. I’ve cashed in my points for $50 Phlash cash this year twice already! So technically, I’ve earned $100 this year for hanging out and getting free prizes and food! I also now have friendly faces all over campus. I know people from all years, majors, countries, and walks of life. It’s an enriching experience that I hope everybody can experience someday.

When there aren’t events happening, there are still places on campus where you can join in. During the day, there are tons and tons of club offices and hang-out spaces that are bustling with people. The Student Government Association is always a great place to study, or you could hang out in the Good Times Programming Center if you want to get some board games or multiplayer video games in. The Pride Center plays kids’ shows on Mondays (including Bluey and Zoboomafoo), and every Friday, they play Star Trek around noon. Watching Star Trek in the Pride Center is one of my favorite things because we’re always making fun of how the actor for Captain Kirk didn’t realize he was on a progressive show. Some of the quotes we find of him from interviews are hilarious! It’s always a good time. The Phoenix Club and the Gaming Center are almost always busy on weekends and weeknights. You can always find someone to play pool or Mario Kart with, or just hang out and enjoy the atmosphere with a treat.

The Art of Balance

I can speak for all of us when I say that life and college are balancing acts that never seem to end. It is essential to balance life so you can complete work and find time for yourself. It’s an essential skill that must be taught to kids of all ages; however, it is never too late to learn it. I am still learning to balance my adult college life with an on-campus job, two clubs, friends, five classes, and three cats at home. The best way I balance my time is through weekly and daily scheduling. My weeks and events are always planned regarding my SGA, Sigma Tau Delta meetings, and work schedule. I also dedicate specific times to studying and taking breaks. As I mentioned before, I have three lovely cats at home whom I adore for all of their quirks and elegance. That being said, they are a responsibility that I must balance. When it comes to balancing the care of my cats, I delegate those tasks to my siblings at home while keeping track of how much food I have and constantly adding to the inventory. As for my social life, I balance that by hanging out with friends at the end of the week and the weekend.

The best study advice is to always use substantial time outside of class to study during the weekdays. Time counts, and we have a vast campus with many study spots. Don’t hesitate to find study partners in your classes because we’re doing this together, and as students, we are our best tools. Now that you have your study partners, plan and start your assignments ahead of time and work on them gradually. It will reduce stress in the long run. Also, creating a schedule would go a long way in imprinting things in your mind so you have a strict balance, whether on your phone or the calendar in your room. Another important aspect of balance is setting break times during and after the day. Relax, take fifteen or twenty-minute intervals; however, a balance killer worth mentioning, one that I struggle with from time to time, is staying up late to study from time to time. In other words, manage your sleep so you’re well-rested. Take breaks and, most importantly, take care of yourself. The art of balance is essential to living a good life and showing devotion to our commitment to excellence.