Week 15: The Last & Final Blog

Good morning, afternoon, evening, or whatever time of day it may be for you as you read this. As shown by the title, this will be the last blog I do for the fall semester here at Georgia Southern and is possibly my last blog. Now I know what the title of this blog entails, and it may seen quite depressing as another thing in my life comes to a close. Despite this. this blog will be a time to look back at my takeaways, good times, and interesting moments from my first semester of college and my experiences in my FYE class which I have been referring to every single week throughout my blogs. Hopefully, I hope that all who may be reading this take something away from the blogs that I wrote about whether it be something funny, intriguing, or maybe even controversial.

The focus of this blog is going to be around two particular weeks/blogs, and the particular weeks from the semester that I will focus on are picked based on two things: The week that helped me towards planning and having the right mindset for the remainder of my college career and the week that left a spark in regards to touchy or impactful topics. The two weeks that follow the previous descriptions were weeks 9 and 10. Week 9 was a continuation of the previous week as our class tackled a topic that we did not know we would be dealing with in the semester. The topics and questions that we were asked in the classroom troubled some, but the conversation held in the classroom and the blogs posted that week presented a lot of different perspectives about the current matter within our university's campgrounds. If you are not aware or are confused what I may be talking to, I will let the words of fellow student Michelle help you out a little bit: "These past two weeks at Georgia Southern have been very impactful with author Jennine Capó Crucet visiting to speak about her book and the events that came after". So yeah, the few weeks after Crucet came and spoke on campus about her life and experiences was filled with interesting topics as every single person in the class had their own views of what went down and how they felt about it. Typically I do not like to join in on these conversations because I do not want to word something wrong so here is a snip of my view on the Crucet incident: "I also have felt a bit embarrassed and disappointed in both sides of the book burning controversy because it is burning bridges and relationships between the university staff, students, and many other people. I know there is a reason for everything in this world, but I would like to move on from the series of events that has taken place the last few weeks". While I did feel a little uncomfortable throughout those talks in class, the talks and the situation with Crucet left an impact and can not be ignored when looking back on the highlights of the semester.

Jumping over to the week after the Crucet talks, our class jumped to a topic a bit more relaxed. Despite this, I felt as the conversations and the activities from that week left an impact on me and has a spot in my heart. The conversation on Monday started out with talking about 'DegreeWorks' and looking over the curriculum sheets that set the path of each and every one of our college careers. After looking over the college planning sheets, our class "participated in an activity that helped us determine what values are important to us as values help set ourselves up to be the person we wanna be". This activity allowed me to set my mind on what I needed to focus on personally in order to make progress towards the person I want to be in the future. Some of the things that I am even doing now contradict the values and characteristics of the person I wanna be. The activity also made me do a gut check on why I was on college and why I was doing mechanical engineering. I kinda related to how Matthew felt about engineering before college: "I only chose it because it sounded cool and would impress my friends and family". I started thinking about mechanical engineering initially because I was good at math, the career field had solid pay, and it dealt with the fast cars I watched growing up. Stepping into the college world and getting a feel of the atmosphere it provides allowed me to set up a plan for my life. As I start to march forward in my college career, I am continuing to set my purpose and my goals so that I know what I wanna be and what I wanna do with my life. As I said in my week 10 blog a few weeks ago, I believe that "a big part of who I am is wrapped around the idea of being able to be as successful and efficient as I can throughout my life in order to have a family of my own one day," and I want to do what it takes to make that happen.

In my introduction blog at the beginning of the semester, I said that "even though I am only forty minutes away from home, I am still able to live out the full college experience". With my first semester in the mirror, I can truly say that I was able to live out the full college experience as I was able to stay on track with my classes, make some great friends, and not be locked up in my room for 15 or so weeks. I have had a lot of talks with my parents in regards to how my semester is going and what my direction is going to be in the future. I tried to do the best to keep my family back home at ease by powering through some of those rough classes and long days. I have struggled and fought through these first weeks of my college career, and I am hoping for the best when grades come back Sunday. I want to thank everyone who has been with me through every step of the way, and I can not wait for what the next semester holds. Thanks for listening!

Sources

Sydnor Intro Blog
https://sydnorcollegeexperience.blogspot.com/2019/08/introduction.html
Sydnor Week 9
https://sydnorcollegeexperience.blogspot.com/2019/10/week-9-extended-make-your-home-among.html
Michelle Week 9
https://michellegibson25.blogspot.com/2019/10/week-9-discussion-on-past-week-of-events.html
Matthew Week 10
https://matthewahonorsfye.blogspot.com/2019/10/week-10-degree-engagement.html
Sydnor Week 10
https://sydnorcollegeexperience.blogspot.com/2019/10/week-10-degree-engagement.html
Images
Time-to-say-goodbye-1200x628-compressed.jpg
Picture of that person is me lol

Week 13: Diversity & Inclusion IV (Motorcycle Diaries)

Good evening or afternoon or anytime of day that you may be reading this. Since this blog is up after the 9 day Thanksgiving break I had and two to three weeks after the last time I posted something, I will spill out of bit more detail of how the last few weeks went including the semi-relaxing Thanksgiving break.

Before the break, every class was starting to approach the conclusion of their respected courses. Throughout the week for my English class, I was working on brainstorming and setting up for my big first draft for the third and final major assignment in the class. Along with preparing a big paper, I had to prepare to a huge Calculus exam on Thursday. Ever since the beginning of the semester, Calculus has presented a lot of challenges to me which is odd since throughout high school I enjoyed Mathematics. With the Calculus exam behind me, my mind was excited for the Thanksgiving week ahead. The Saturday leading into the break presented some anxiety and stress before my actual break could get started. On Saturday, I spent several hours trying to complete my rough draft for my final assignment in English. After being drained of my mental energy, I fortunately had an entire week to gain back my energy and stock my belly up with some nice Thanksgiving day food. I got to contribute somewhat to Thanksgiving by making Pumpkin pie which turned out a lot better than I expected. The Friday after Thanksgiving was not filled with Black Friday shopping but with Christmas preparations. I got to put Christmas decorations on the Christmas tree we just got. After Friday, I made my journey back to Georgia Southern to prepare for the final two weeks of the semester. Now to do the usual, I will go over the few weeks in my FYE class sessions.

Over the last four FYE classes, we have been going over the same general area of topic dealing with the film of Motorcycle Diaries which came out 10 or so years ago. We watched the beginning portion of the film in class, but we as students were tasked with watching the rest of the film during our free time. The film 'Motorcycle Diaries' is essentially about two guys from Argentina journeying by motorcycle and various other ways of transportation up the countryside in order to go through places like Venezuela and Chile in order to journey up South America's western coastline. Aside from watching the film, we learned about the main character who essentially is 'Che' Guevara who was a major figure of the Cuban Revolution after Che saw many injustices throughout his countryside trip. In one of our classes before the break, our class was presented a TedEd video that displayed both sides in regards to supporting and opposing Che Guevara's actions as a human being throughout his years in cultivating the Cuban Revolution and sparking many different places to fight against their governments, flawed systems, and countries. As usual, our class was presented a handful of questions regarding Che and the movie we watched. Some of the questions reflect back to our current day society in modern day problems like justified armed conflicts and the even the use of firearms in today's world. While we were not able to tackle all the questions, the questions gave the class and me a chance to reflect on the amazing lives that we are given in this country and not take what opportunities we are given for granted as we have it so much better in the United States than billions of people do around the globe. Thank you for reading and I'll write since again in the near future.

Week 12: Evaluating Information & Academic Research

Good day to all that read this blog! If you read this blog weekly, I do the 'usual' and will go through the course of my week quickly and then lead into the discussions and topics addressed in the FYE classes from Monday and Wednesday of last week. There is not much to go over from the last week but there are some highlights. On Monday, I had to get up early in the morning in order to sign up for classes for the spring semester. Getting up early to do that made the rest of the day pretty long and tiring as I typically don't wake up prior to 7 on a weekday. Besides that, the beginning of the week was bland like normal but the week got interesting one I got to Thursday. On Thursday, I got to play in a kickball playoff tournament since the team I was on won a game earlier in the season. We won the first game of the tournament off the other team forfeiting. Winning that game we made it to the final four. Our competitors did decide to show up, and we ended up playing a good game but ended up losing in the end 11-9. On Friday, I had to attend a 'round table' discussion for my ENGL 1102 class over establishing a topic for our up and coming paper for the class. I enjoyed listening to other people's ideas for topics that related to their research and fields of study. In the midst of a bouncy up and down week, FYE classes tackled quite an interesting set of topics that will extend further into my college career.

On Monday, we spent the majority of class talking about evaluating sources that news come from. To get straight to the point, the gist of the class period was to identify what sources, sites, newspapers, magazines, etc are reliable and can provide trustworthy information. Our professor presented a powerpoint presentation which provided screenshots of articles from various different various, and all the students were given the task to identify what sources are reliable and which ones are not. After this fun and interactive presentation, we were given another task to complete out of class. Out of class before Wednesday, we as students were required to come up with a powerful research-type question that we could provide sources towards our 'research'. We had to get one source from a news type article and another source from the Galileo which is an online library source that allows us as students to look up detailed research and topics. With our professor not in class on Wednesday, we spent the whole class analyzing and depicting how reliable and credible our two sources were with the 'CRAAP' standard which identified currency, relevancy, authority, accuracy, and purpose of the writing. My two sources went over the topic of alternative fuels and countries trying to switch their cars over to electric in a set amount of time. Both of my sources followed the guidelines pretty well. The only standard that was iffy for the news type source was the accuracy because particular data was not repeated in a different source.

Personal Reflection

Doing research on several different topics and ideas this week proved to be very crucial as I am doing research in my ENGL 1102 class for a big assignment. The topics and assignments I am doing in my FYE class line up pretty well with what I am doing in the Composition class which is very helpful as it gives me time to do more research and look into my topic a bit more as I am essentially doing mirror assignments in two classes. Thank you for reading my blog once again this week, and my sources for this blog are listed below.

Sources:
https://www.aiip.org/resources/Pictures/AIIP%20Website%20Icons/AIIP%20Research%20Icon.png

Week 11: Preparing for Registration & Meaningful Inquiry

Good evening, morning, or whatever time of day it is that you may read this. This last week and a half has been clumped with many academic assignments and tasks to complete including preparing for my spring semester classes and doing a bunch of laundry. As usual, before I get to the big topics from my FYE classes after I go over a brief analysis of my week.

Starting off the week was a terrible, no good Monday. On Monday, I spent several hours wrapping up a huge project for my Engineering Graphics class. Finishing that project was a grueling task and covered up a hot amount of my time on Monday. After that task was completed, the rest of the week went a bit better and according to plan. On Tuesday, I went to a FYE Success Series about succeeding through struggle and persevering through college and life to pursue the goals in front of you. The kickball playoff games I was supposed to play during the week got postponed. Besides having a slow and busy start to the week, Wednesday and up through the weekend were less stressful and allowed me to focus on my goals and tasks moving forward. Now onto the FYE topics from the last week which are relevant to the upcoming tasks in front of me in my college career.

On Monday, our class was visited by the Honors Advisor of Erin Martin who helped go over some important things regarding the upcoming date for early registration for spring semester classes. Martin went over some of the essentials steps and tips in order to get the classes we want as fast as we can on the day of registration. We also went over all the possible problems and error messages that could arise when we are signing up for classes. We are required to look over if we have any holds or preexisting conditions on our account before we sign up for classes because that will affect whether we can sign up for classes or not the day of registration. In the midst of registration, there will be many Honors students fighting for limited spots in particular Honors classes which means that I will have to set those classes as I priority to get to first day of registration. Before class on Wednesday, we had to read an article over the 'Art of Powerful Questions' to prepare for discussions in Wednesday's class. Starting off Wednesday's class, we answered a few questions on a sheet of paper regarding the article that we read. One of the questions on the sheet asked that if we could ask a powerful question regarding any of the discussions over the semester what would it be. My question asked about how the FYE class would impact us here on out throughout our college careers. While some people could give a simplistic answer to this and depict a given circumstance or situation, anyone could give a different perspective on how the FYE class from this semester could or could not have an impact on ourselves throughout our college career. Referring back to the article, the art and complexion of a powerful question can impact how a person responds to a question and how they access the situation at hand.

Personal Reflection

Going over class registration and powerful questions this week was very impactful and important. Registering for classes is very crucial as it sets me up for my next semester at Georgia Southern as I continue to work towards my goals in college and to become a mechanical engineer. Being able to make sure everything goes right in the registration process is very important as well. Asking powerful questions and questions in general is heavily important because I need to be able to step and ask the right questions that will benefit me and allow me to complete the tasks at hand. I thank everyone that read my blog this week. Sorry it was not filled a ton of information and shorter than usual. Listed below are the sources to articles and pictures used in this blog.

Sources:

http://tiny.cc/ycs2qy

https://www.adolescent-psychiatry.org/2019-registration

https://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/honors/student-resources/curriculum/

Week 10: Degree Engagement

Hello everyone and welcome yet again to another blog by yours truly. Now if you have read up on the previous blogs up to this point then you probably know the drill and how this blog is going to be constructed. I will lead off with the usual summary of my college life over the last week followed by the topics discussed in my Honors First-Year Experience Class. Reading this far, you are probably dedicated to reading the whole blog post so I'll do my best to keep you engaged to what I am addressing throughout this post.

With midterms, major assignments, intramurals, and Homecoming Week looming around the corner, the week was bound to get feisty and busy real quick. The start of the week went by similarly to the beginnings of past weeks as my Calculus, Composition, and Engineering classes dictated my time and grabbed a hold of my learning focus. Wednesday was a long and interesting day as I had a lot of studying to do for exams and a kickball game that my team won that evening. Thursday was even longer than Wednesday as I woke up at 5 in the morning to continue my studying for my Calculus exam which took place later that morning. I went to my Geography and Engineering Processing Lab classes to finish out the academic part of my day. After those classes, I went to the Statesboro fair with a group of friends. I ended up getting Fried Oreos which were very good. The weekend has been plagued with rain as I tried to go to the football game on Saturday with my dad and step-mom, but the rain forced us to leave the game soaked and disappointed in Mother Nature. 

In the midst of a busy and fast-moving week, important topics were discussed in our FYE class regarding our personal values and the what mindsets we have pursuing our degree in college. On Monday, we took a look at catalogs and curriculum sheets for our majors as we are entering the period of setting up our classes for the next semester of college. We also participated in a activity that helped us determine what values are important to us as values help set ourselves up to be the person we wanna be. We started by picking out 15 values from a list and narrowing it down to 5. The core values I believe are important for myself and are apart of who I am are accuracy, efficiency, success, purpose, and family. A big part of who I am is wrapped around the idea of being able to be as successful and efficient as I can throughout my life in order to have a family of my own one day. While I want to be a great mechanical engineer, I also want to be an amazing father figure and husband for when that time comes.

On Wednesday we continued the activity regarding our personal values by discussing them with fellow other classmates and why we chose the values we did for ourselves. After the discussing we watched a TEDTalk video with Maurice Ashley speaking about how setting goals is related to chess. In chess, advance and experienced players look at several outcomes moves ahead for them before they move a corresponding piece on the board. Using this concept, we can look ahead at the goal we are achieving and work our way backwards in order to see what we need to do to accomplish the tasks and goals we set for ourselves. Using this mindset will allow myself to see where I need to be and what I need to do to in order to get my.college degree and obtain the life that I want for myself down the road.

Personal Reflection

After this week's schedule and discussions, it has definitely had me questioning if I am doing what I really want to be doing with my life. At the end of the day, I want to be doing something that I can excel in and enjoy. I know regardless of where I go there will be good and bad days but I want to amplify the amount of happiness I can possess throughout everyday life through the career and lifestyle I am in. It is definitely good for me to look at my personal values and see if I am on the right track in order to achieve happiness and get the life that I want past college. Thank you so much for reading my blog and acknowledging my moments and FYE discussion from the last week. As usual, sources for videos and pictures referenced are listed below. 

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v34NqCbAA1c

https://catalog.georgiasouthern.edu/undergraduate/allen-paulson-engineering-computing/mechanical-engineering/mechanical-engineering-bsme/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ImyM90XHJQ

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614043/instead-of-practicing-this-ai-mastered-chess-by-reading-about-it/

Week 9: Extended 'Make Your Home Among Strangers' Discussion and More

Good afternoon to anyone and everyone that is reading this blog! I will do the usual rundown of my week and proceed to analyze the discussions that I had in my FYE class last week. Since our class spent the majority of the week going over the speech given by Jennie Capo Crucet at a FYE Success Series event last week, this blog will be present less info and detail than others in the past.

My week went fairly well and mostly according to plan. Monday was very busy with all the classes, an Honors Advisory Board meeting, and a kickball game at 10 at night. Tuesday went according to schedule as well, but I did find out the dates of two upcoming exams for Calculus and Geography which ramps up the stress and studying for the next two weeks. I had an advisory meeting to discuss the workload and the classes I would be taking for the spring semester of my freshmen year. I was a little shocked when my advisor said that I would be only taking 13 credit hours next semester, but I was then told that I was ahead in credits with some of the dual enrollment credits that I carried over from high school. Having those dual enrollment credits cancelled out some of the classes on the schedule that I have already taken. This also means though that I am kind of trapped due to me not being able to take certain major classes next semester because I have not completed classes like Calculus II and Chemistry yet. Besides that, my week went pretty smoothly the rest of the way. Now onto the discussions from my FYE classes last week.

Starting off on Monday, each student in the class was presented with a sheet a paper that asked us questions regarding the speech given by Jennie Capo Crucet the previous Wednesday before class and how we felt about the speech. We were asked if the speech made us feel uncomfortable, and we were also asked on our personal opinion on why particular students at Georgia Southern burned the 'Make Your Home Among Strangers' copies in protest of the book and speech given. To give a quick backstory, Crucet's speech highlighted her journey to becoming a professor and why she does what she does today. In the midst of her speech, she angered some people with her strong tone and her speech against the ways of white privilege in her past and in the present day. A group of students got together to burn her books out of their anger, and some students showed their displeasure through Twitter. These series of events made national news across the national over the course of the last week and a half. We reviewed and looked over some of the things that Crucet mentioned in her speech and discussed some quotes from the speech. On Wednesday, we looked over some of the responses from within our class for the questions given in class on Monday. We highlighted some of the responses that stuck out to us and was the most surprising. Some of the responses also opened up the conversation to talk about Crucet's tone during the speech, diversity, freedom of speech, and many other topics. After looking at Monday's responses, we looked at the article "11 ways white America avoids taking responsibility for its racism". The article by Dr. Robin Diangelo indicates that people can say racist comments without even thinking about, and it happens unintentionally in lots of cases. People. whites in particular, not realizing that they have or can say racist comments out of the blue sounds absurd and does not apply to them at all. 

Personal Reflection

To be honest, I have not enjoyed discussing things the last two weeks not because of the controversial and difficult topics but because it is hard for me to say something from the perspective and person that I am. I feel like that my views and standpoints in these type of conversations does not mean much. I do not want any bad intentions to come out of this because I typically do not have a good point or idea to relay in class when we are talking about anything. I also have felt a bit embarrassed and disappointed in both sides of the book burning controversy because it is burning bridges and relationships between the university staff, students, and many other people. I know there is a reason for everything in this world, but I would like to move on from the series of events that has taken place the last few weeks.  Thank you again for reading my blog once again, and the sources used for the pictures and article mentioned in this blog are listed below!

Sources:

georgia-southern-university-jennine-capo-crucet-book.jpg

https://www.salon.com/2015/06/16/11_ways_white_america_avoids_taking_responsibility_for_its_racism_partner/

Week 8: 'Make Your Home Among Strangers'

Good afternoon to all my readers! I am here to give you yet another quick rundown of my week and my FYE discussions. This week surely was interesting, but I will try to get to keep it as condensed as possible.

To go over the week from my point of view, we start off with Monday which was filled with interesting changes and surprises in itself. In my Engineering Graphics class, I found out that my professor ended up in the hospital over the weekend. I will not go into detail about what happened to him but he is doing alright and getting physically better as he should be able to return to teaching our class within the next week or two. I participated in the Honors LLC Advisory Board meeting as well where we discussed the plans for our first event in the Honors LLC. Tuesday went relatively smoothly as every class went according to schedule those days. Wednesday and Thursday were mediocre days as I had a Math quiz to deal with early in the morning. I also attended two FYE Success Series in the evening which I will get to later on in this blog. Thursday was a pretty slow day even throughout the two flag football games I played that evening. Friday, Saturday, and today (Sunday) have been the better portion of the week with time for me to relax and catch up on some of the work I did not do throughout the week. Now onto the FYE class and Success Series experiences from last week.

Before Monday's class, we were set with the task to read Chapters 1-18 in the book 'Make Your Home Among Strangers'. Considering it was a book that all freshmen students were required to read, I did not have high expectations about the book to be honest because I thought it would have repetitive information and not tell me much that I do not know. Reading the book was kinda rough because the main character was a confusing person to follow with personality wise. The character, Lizet, has a problem with academic dishonesty in the early stages of the book with plagiarism and wasted money to come home for Thanksgiving during the fall semester even though she should have been saving her money for school. Lizet has a few complicated relationships as she struggles to maintain a relationship with her boyfriend Omar which eventually falls through and a friendship with Ethan which also has problems due to Lizet's personality in not being able to address her problems efficiently throughout the film. Despite the many problems I saw within the book and its main character, the book did a good job highlighting several themes that are important to college freshman like dealing with academics, fitting in at college, and dealing with financial troubles which are all concepts that I can relate to.

During Monday's class, we took a quick 'quiz' over our knowledge and views on the first chapters of the book. After the quiz, we read an article called 'Against All Odds' that depicts the real story of Gasper Leiva journeying to the United States from Cuba in order to give his family the American life that would be better for them. The man would go on to be a Spanish professor at our University of Georgia Southern even to this day. The trouble with Cuba and the United States in the late 1900s and early 2000s indirectly spoken in the article would be put on display through the Elian Gonzalez Raid. This event was shown and depicted through the character and political problem with the 5 year old boy of Ariel in the book 'Make Your Home Among Strangers'.

We did not have class Wednesday, but I went to the FYE Success Series to listen to the speech of Jennine Capo Crucet who wrote the book 'Make Your Home Among Strangers'. The speech was mainly about the journey of how Crucet became a professor at the college she teaches at and why she does what she does for a living. She also took a good chunk of her speech talking about white privilege in the past and today's society. After her speech, there was a time period dedicated to a Q&A session with the author. This led to a student asking a question regarding to why the author talked about white privilege and 'why she thinks she has the right to come in here and talk about it'. This lead to tensions between the author, the student, and the rest of the audience. After this event, I attended another FYE Success Series called 'Beat the Blame Game' that discussed how victims and people can be viewed in cases of sexual assault.

Thank you for reading this blog once again! Sources relating to the speech, topics, and pictures used are featured below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJUta-9BsU
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Home-Among-Strangers/dp/1250094550
https://clipartstation.com/quiz-clipart-1-4/