Home for the Weekend

    Hi everyone! I hope you all are doing well and ready for Halloween! I hope you all had the chance to go home at least once so far this semester. It is definitely nice to be away from home, but if any of you are like me, you still miss your family every now and then. Luckily for me, home is only an hour or so away and I am able to go every weekend or so. Recently, I haven’t been home in a couple weeks and I realized how hard it really is. So this weekend I finally went home.

    I am the only daughter and have two younger brothers so I am the first to go to college. My parents had a hard time letting go. I thought I wouldn’t miss them that much but as I as the weeks went by I realized how different life was without my family. So now, whenever I go home, it is like a big reunion for my family. There is always a loving atmosphere when I go home that I don’t feel when living on my own. Your family is always there for you and they miss no matter how busy they are.        

    No matter how big or small your family is, they miss you. They are thinking and worrying about you if you are not. It’s definitely hard to go home if you are so far away but a phone call always makes a difference. If you are able to go home try to go every other weekend or so. Your parents miss you and would love to see you back even if it’s just for a few hours. Don’t forget to tell your parents how much you love them. Small gestures like that will let them know that you do care and they will feel content when you leave. Home is where the heart is and no matter how far away you are, your family will always be there for you.

We Are Half Way There!

Hi everyone! I hope you
all had a great week and will have a great weekend. We, as freshmen, should all
be very proud of ourselves because we made it through the first half of our
first semester as USF college students! I don’t know about you all, but I have
experienced more in my first semester than I have in my four years of high
school. I have met some great people and made some long lasting friends.
Unfortunately, I have felt myself slacking just a little bit. So I decided to
write my entry on how to keep the school spark alive.

Surviving the first
half of the semester is a big accomplishment. I feel that I have grown since
the beginning of the year. So far, my grades are pretty high and I just
finished taking midterms for some of my classes, including the dreaded
chemistry. I haven’t seen my grade yet, but I definitely hope that three days
of studying will pay off. I have definitely learned to manage my time over this
first half of the semester, but I feel that it is getting more difficult. As the
semester goes on, more work is being given and campus life gets even bigger. How
do you balance it all out? Well everyone, my biggest advice is to not forget
why you are in college in the first place. Getting your education is the most
important part of your college experience. Yes, the semester is half over, but don’t
slack! There is still plenty of school left and you don’t want to mess up your
GPA. Keep doing all of the things that are balancing school and social life. Exercise,
eat right, and stay ahead of the game because the more you get used to doing
these tasks, the easier the semester will be!

So keep up the good
work guys. We are half way there! The semester will be over sooner than you
think and then you can finally say that you survived your first semester as a
college freshman. Good luck to all of you and I hope you live the college life
to its fullest. GO BULLS!

Campus Resources

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a great weekend so far. The weekend could never last long enough J. Well as you all know, chemistry has been a struggle for me and despite small improvements, I have been looking for other methods of to try and help me grasp the material better. Every week we do a chapter and homework online. I decided to take a look at my homework and see if I could get started. I took one look and thought ‘I can’t do this homework by myself’. I was sitting with one of my sisters and she told me to check out the tutoring center in the library. I was very skeptical about it because I wasn’t sure if they would be able to give me the help I needed. I thought ‘why not I have nothing to lose’.

                After talking to my sister I headed up and entered the tutoring center. It took only two minutes to sign up for it and I was in. The room was pretty big and I just took a seat next to a group of students who were actually doing the same home work. I spent two hours learning from everyone and was able to get all of my work done. When we all got stuck on a problem, there were students with higher levels of knowledge in chemistry and graduate students there to explain every step. Not only did I get help but I was also able to understand the chapter. Now that I understand, I will be able to study for the and do well.

                I found that campus resources can really be of help if you take the initiative to check them out. If your professor’s office hours are not convenient for you, there might be a tutoring session that will really benefit you. The more resources you use, the better you will understand the information. Take it from me! I hope you all enjoyed this little piece of information, GO BULLS!

Finding Your Passion

Hi everyone! It’s finally the weekend and Go Bulls! So this week I was sitting in my chemistry class and I just thought ‘wow I really don’t want to be here’. I wasn’t getting any of the concepts and I realized that I didn’t like chemistry at all. I am a biology/pre-med major and I realized that chemistry is going to be an ongoing learning experience throughout college and I didn’t know if that’s what I really wanted to do anymore. So my quest to figure out what my passion was began.

            My first step was making an appointment with my biology advisor just in case I decided to keep my major in the end and create my spring semester schedule. I went to see him and told him exactly how I was feeling. He started naming some options that I might be interested in.  He said I could go into other science fields that don’t necessarily require medical school. The one major that interested me the most was athletic training/sports medicine. I am athletically oriented and the idea of combining sports and medicine interested me a lot. My next step was to do more research. I went to on the USF website and began looking for more information on athletic training and even on other potential majors. I found an array of majors that are medically related and I found myself even more confused. I decided to talk to my parents because they have been in these situations before. My mom is a doctor and she told me not to get discouraged. It’s very early in the year and I should just be patient and keep trying. So I have decided that I will wait and see and if I find that I still can find my passion as a biology major, then I will reconsider changing.

            In the end, my biggest advice for all of you is to not be so quick to change your majors based on one class that just doesn’t interest you. You will come across classes on your paths that don’t necessarily make sense to you. Don’t get discouraged and keep working hard. You will find out that things will work out. Until next time...Go Bulls and have a great weekend!

Staying Focused

 Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week. I know I did :). I have found that staying focused becomes increasingly difficult as the semester rolls by. The home work load grows as well as responsibilities to organizations that I am involved with. How do I keep up with it all? Well, I am going to try my best to come up with some ways to stay focused on school and still be involved in school.

I think the best piece of paper than any professor can give you is the syllabus. It is really important to read through those syllabi and plan your weeks accordingly. That way you can get school work done and have time for friends or organizations. If you don't plan out your weeks you will find yourself putting school work second to friends and organizations. It might not be a problem at that very moment, but it will come back to get you when you are sitting the night before trying to get everything done at once. This leaves for potential errors and mistakes and in college you want to try to avoid those as much as possible.

You can’t forget why we are in college in the first place. You are here to get an education and everything else should be second to learning. If you have to, let your organizations know that you cannot make it to a meeting due to a test or a paper. I’m very sure that they won’t penalize you for that, if anything, they will praise you for your dedication to your school work. Most organizations have policies on keeping a certain GPA and study log hours so I encourage all of you to take advantage of that and use it as an encouragement for yourself to study.

College is a whole new experience and I know I want to make the best of it. We can’t forget that we are here to learn and enhance our futures. Organizations and clubs can be a part of that enhancement but we cannot let them take over. School work should always come first and staying organized can allow you to get the best of both experiences. Until next time…GO BULLS!