I can't say that I ever rocked finals (unless they were in French). I remember stressing about each and every final. I just didn't know if what I was feeling was right. I didn't know how to study or what to study. I didn't feel like asking for help from anyone either. I just didn't have the thought. Even if I ever did, I just couldn't imagine asking anyone for that... admitting that I needed someone else to coach me through it. After several semesters, I never got the hang of it. It just got worse and worse to a point where studying just made me feel so anxious. I never felt like I could ever get ahead. On top of all of that, I had the stress of working and trying to earn money to live off of campus.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I made a big mistake in working so much during my first undergrad. I wanted so much to be independent and not rely on my parents. I just felt guilty all the time. I mean, at first it wasn't so bad. I worked a few hours and had some savings. Then, I blew through that and had to ask for gas money and oil change money. Then, I started working more, even taking two part-time jobs in the summer. During the school year, I felt like I was even more poor despite scraping together money from my summer jobs. Nothing really seemed to make ends meet. I hated that feeling of now knowing how to pay my bills, about looming educational debt, and what in HELL I was going to do with my life. I just started putting work over my education, and my education definitely suffered.
I just didn't know where I was going and what I was going to do.
Now that I'm back in school, something has just clicked. I just feel so confident. I am doing really well, and I study a lot. I have a lot of motivation to stay up late and to work hard.
I have a lot of guilt, justified or not, for not doing well in my undergrad. I mean, I still graduated, but I don't feel proud of myself. I don't feel like I gave a good impression of myself to my professors. I felt like I just became jaded at some point. I didn't know what to do. I think I just balled up my anxiety, and I must have been depressed or something at some point. I just couldn't do anything. It was so bad it took me two hours to read one paragraph. Forget writing papers because I couldn't get past the introductory paragraph.
I just have so much time now (from not working) to study. I can still do some relaxing and enjoy myself a little and not feel guilty about it. I get all of my work done, if not in advance!
Going into finals this year, I just feel like I'm in a good place. I feel confident about having time to study. I feel good about what I've learned. I've even already been preparing for my finals by reading back in my textbooks and practicing old material we learned in the beginning of the semester. A lot of things are clicking for me. I just feel good. I feel anxiety about doing well, but it's not overbearing. I feel like I can get through it and that I will do well.
Something has changed. I don't know exactly what, but I'm so glad that I've overcome the stress of finals.
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Biggest Mistakes I Made During Undergrad
Almost six years ago, I started my undergraduate experience at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. There is not one experience I would change because I think it all ultimately led to meeting and marrying my husband. The bonfires, weekend parties at Hannan's house, hair dying parties, drama, choir tours, and the late nights with friends were all worth it. I had such a great experience that the only thing I regret is not doing more and not spending more time with my friends my senior year.
Now that I have graduated and am working on my second bachelor's degree, I have started to see the mistakes I made with my learning and the false assumptions I made.
1. Professors don't care if I succeed or fail (but they'd rather I do well). I used to have a lot of anxiety about missing a class or turning something in unfinished when I had no reason to be. The pressures I felt were all self-induced and largely unwarranted.
2. Education is every bit what you put into it. I have always known this, but why I lacked before was trust and faith in myself that I could do well and be successful, that I could do well and didn't have to worry about being the best or the brightest (even though that would be a nice bonus).
3. Socialization is an important aspect of the undergraduate experience but it shouldn't outweigh the real reason the undergraduate experience exists: EDUCATION. I spent a lot of time being worried about spending too little time with close friends or about the week's drama surrounding my friends. I realized how socially sensitive I was and how it really took away from my academic focus. I started to care less about school and more about the relationships in my life.
I hope that anyone starting their undergrad experience takes note. It's supposed to be a new experience that is both fun and exciting. Don't get caught up in the experience, though. It's about your future and your education.
Now that I have graduated and am working on my second bachelor's degree, I have started to see the mistakes I made with my learning and the false assumptions I made.
1. Professors don't care if I succeed or fail (but they'd rather I do well). I used to have a lot of anxiety about missing a class or turning something in unfinished when I had no reason to be. The pressures I felt were all self-induced and largely unwarranted.
2. Education is every bit what you put into it. I have always known this, but why I lacked before was trust and faith in myself that I could do well and be successful, that I could do well and didn't have to worry about being the best or the brightest (even though that would be a nice bonus).
3. Socialization is an important aspect of the undergraduate experience but it shouldn't outweigh the real reason the undergraduate experience exists: EDUCATION. I spent a lot of time being worried about spending too little time with close friends or about the week's drama surrounding my friends. I realized how socially sensitive I was and how it really took away from my academic focus. I started to care less about school and more about the relationships in my life.
I hope that anyone starting their undergrad experience takes note. It's supposed to be a new experience that is both fun and exciting. Don't get caught up in the experience, though. It's about your future and your education.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Deceiving Professors
Having spent four years earning a BA and this year working on prerequisites for an accelerated nursing program, I have had my fair share of all kinds of professors. I have had professors that spoon feed information like we're too dumb to learn any part of the course on our own. I had professors that barely taught and forced students to teach themselves everything, reducing the professor to a test proctor and assignment grader (if there were even assignments). I've also had a fair share of professors that made us read the book for tests but lectured on NOTHING IN THE BOOK. It's frustrating to be a student, especially in a country where education is moving farther and farther away from uniformity. What you learn in one school may be completely different from another! This varies from state to state, county to county and school to school (sometimes even in the same district).
I have gotten halfway through this semester and done pretty well. However, I have noticed that despite the stellar grades and the confidence in learning the material, I find that the stress I feel comes during homework assignments and, especially, during/after test. You may say that this is a normal feel, warranted because there is something on the line for me. I disagree, though. The reason I feel so uneasy at those specific times is because I have a very deceiving professor.
Deceiving professors are the ones that give you homework assignments with incredibly difficult problems to work through (even if they turn out to be easy once you understand how to solve it), tell you some of those problems will show up on the test, and then omit any questions like them on the test.
Walking out of my Chemistry test today, I found myself worrying that I had skipped a page or that I set up the problems that I found easy incorrectly. A friend in the class had the same thoughts during the test (a girl next to her also spilled coffee on her test). I don't have a lot of test anxiety most of the time. Today was no exception. My friend, however, told me that she almost didn't even feel like working on the last three problems of the test because she was so confused and overwhelmed. Why did she feel this way?
She felt that way because our professor led us to believe that the problems that caused us so much stress to solve on the homework, that she told us would show up on the test, never appeared. Instead, there was a slew of problems on the test that made only ONE appearance on the previous assignments and group problems.
While this particular professor does a great job of teaching the material and helping us understand it, I don't think she understands that her tests don't follow what she's telling us we're supposed to be prepared for on the test. On one hand, if we can solve the hardest problems before the test, we should be able to handle anything she serves us on the exam. On the other hand, we prepare and stress out about seeing the hard problems on the test and become paranoid that we aren't doing certain simpler problems correctly when the hard problems make no appearance on the test at all.
This is what I like to call a gift and a curse.
I have gotten halfway through this semester and done pretty well. However, I have noticed that despite the stellar grades and the confidence in learning the material, I find that the stress I feel comes during homework assignments and, especially, during/after test. You may say that this is a normal feel, warranted because there is something on the line for me. I disagree, though. The reason I feel so uneasy at those specific times is because I have a very deceiving professor.
Deceiving professors are the ones that give you homework assignments with incredibly difficult problems to work through (even if they turn out to be easy once you understand how to solve it), tell you some of those problems will show up on the test, and then omit any questions like them on the test.
Walking out of my Chemistry test today, I found myself worrying that I had skipped a page or that I set up the problems that I found easy incorrectly. A friend in the class had the same thoughts during the test (a girl next to her also spilled coffee on her test). I don't have a lot of test anxiety most of the time. Today was no exception. My friend, however, told me that she almost didn't even feel like working on the last three problems of the test because she was so confused and overwhelmed. Why did she feel this way?
She felt that way because our professor led us to believe that the problems that caused us so much stress to solve on the homework, that she told us would show up on the test, never appeared. Instead, there was a slew of problems on the test that made only ONE appearance on the previous assignments and group problems.
While this particular professor does a great job of teaching the material and helping us understand it, I don't think she understands that her tests don't follow what she's telling us we're supposed to be prepared for on the test. On one hand, if we can solve the hardest problems before the test, we should be able to handle anything she serves us on the exam. On the other hand, we prepare and stress out about seeing the hard problems on the test and become paranoid that we aren't doing certain simpler problems correctly when the hard problems make no appearance on the test at all.
This is what I like to call a gift and a curse.
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