I have been attending college for 6 weeks now and each week has taught me something different about how to get the most out of this experience.
As I mentioned above, these past few weeks have given me resources and tips on how to become a successful college student. Every lesson is equally as important as the last, but I would like to speak specifically about some topics that my Inquiry class has been discussing in the past couple of classes.
This week we touched upon the topic of admitting one's mistakes. This is an extremely difficult thing for most people to do. My group specifically listened to an audio recording of a doctor who held a deadly mistake he made in his carrier inside of him for over a decade. No one wants to admit their mistakes. Every person has this delusional desire to be perfect, but we are flawed humans and none of us are perfect. Keeping our mistakes trapped in our own minds is detrimental not only to ourselves, but to those around us as well. When we keep secrets to ourselves they eat away at us causing stress and negatively affecting our health. Also, if you do not share your mistakes with others, no one will have the benefit of learning from them. As said in the audio, "treatments exist today off the backs of those who died." It is a morbid concept, but the mistake one doctor makes could potentially save another patient's life in the future.
Last week, our main topic of conversation was time management. Looking back on it now, these two concepts are actually related. The purpose of the time management schedules we filled out was to see how we were distributing our time and what we need to change in order to be better students with well-rounded lives. I'm sure the vast majority of us realized from this activity that we were not making the most of our time. We recognized the mistakes we made so that we can look back on them in the future and do things differently. Time management is vital to surviving college. If we do not allot ourselves enough time in any area or allot too much to one specific activity, we are making our lives that much more difficult. Too much socializing and not enough study leads to bad grades. Too much studying with very little socializing leads to stress and feeling overwhelmed. We must create "S.M.A.R.T. goals" (Successful Manageable Achievable Reasonable Timely). When planning our days, we need to be sure that the goals we are setting follow this criteria. We need that perfect balance between work and leisure, and we cannot find it without some trial and error in our daily scheduling.
The last big subject my class tackled that I am going to discuss is delayed gratification. This is the perfect topic to tie everything together because delaying gratification is at the very root of succeeding in college. Nothing about college is instant. You don't get your degree in a day and it takes a lot of time and effort to get to where you want to be. We are not little kids anymore. Nobody gives us what we want when we cry. We have to work ourselves to the bone and never give up. As said in an article about the marshmallow study, "Mischel argues that intelligence is largely at the mercy of self-control." It takes an immense amount of self control to toil for years and put all of your effort into your education until it finally pays off when you get to walk across that stage and get your diploma. However, until that day comes, we have to manage our time wisely, admit our mistakes, grow from them, and persevere.
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