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/