1.)Brainstorming

Jornal #4:

The topic that I am choosing to speak about is improving my academic self. The way that I am going to try to connect to the audience is by bringing up my academic history (or lack thereof) and then talk about how I would like to improve. The increase of my grades from freshman year of high school to senior year was pretty significant and I am trying to bring even better qualities to college. I also plan on bringing up the specific ways that I try to get things done or stay organized, maybe talk about planners, routines and productivity. I am a huge procrastinator also and that is possibly relatable to some of my other classmates. I selected this topic because it seemed easier for me to write about my academic self over my professional self. Like I said earlier, academics have not always come easy for me and I even had a math tutoring class for like five or six years. Come to college and I’ve taken stats in three different forms… so good. Anyways I just felt like it would be easier for me to speak about my development as a student as I grow up. I know this will be repeating myself but I think I’m going to go about my speech by starting with the bad things and how i have struggled, continue to the ways you help yourself and how there are different ways for different people and then end on a note on how their is a way for everyone to get to a better point for themselves with their school work and if not, there are also other options.

2.)Revised Outline

How to become an Academic weapon 

School has been challenging for me, however working is something that came easy to me. I have always enjoyed working at a job. I have interacted well with my coworkers and employers alike.  Many professional things come as second nature to me and seem self explanatory. I am a fast learner when it comes to tasks at a workplace and I would take work over school anyday. Academics have not been my favorite to be honest but I’m hoping to change my opinion on that. I have been slow on the uptake in some classes particularly math. Struggling with academics has made me feel bad and less confident about myself. I was one of the last people in my class to learn how to read and do multiplication and I frequently feel one step behind everyone else. I have forever doubted my academic abilities and this led to me not wanting to try as hard in school anymore. I knew the effort and time I would put into an assignment or test and then saw that my peers spent half the time and half the effort on the same thing and got a way better grade than me and that was hard for me to accept and made me feel like there was something wrong with me. I tend to overcomplicate things when they don’t need to be because I misunderstand directions and think too literally about everything. 

   Growing up I’ve come to accept the fact that things that are easy for other people aren’t going to be easy for me and that’s okay. I might have to try a little harder to get the same result but i’m not going to let that make me feel bad anymore because things that are easy for me might be hard for others.Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and its important to know your own and not compare where your at to anyone else. Everyone is different and this is what I have found works for me. Knowing yourself and knowing how and where you like to study is extremely important. Knowing when to stop and take a break is key because if you are overtired and overworked it gets to a point where the work you are doing is no longer productive. Active listening in lectures and taking good notes helps dramatically. If you take good enough notes all you are going to have to do to study is look over your notes. 

One that Is important to keep in mind is to take baby steps and not get overwhelmed. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed if you look too much at the big picture. I do this to myself quite often. Try to take things one step at a time, one assignment at a time. If you know that you’re someone who needs extra time to get things done like me, make sure you are giving yourself the time you need to get what you need done. Making to do lists isn’t something that I normally do myself but I feel that it would be extremely helpful and beneficial for me to do so. Writing down all your assignments so that you don’t lose track of when they are due. It is important to know when your work is due so that you give yourself enough time to complete the assignment. Knowing when all of your assignments, exams and quizzes are due is a key to success.Try at all costs to not procrastinate (something that I am horrible at)!  Prioritize the things that are the hardest for you first so you can rest easier when the most difficult assignments are done so it doesn’t  loom over your head like a dark cloud.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help is extremely important for success. There are so many times that I become stuck and just a little push in the right direction goes a long way.

Having a good attitude about a class or assignment can really change the outcome. If you have a bad attitude and go into a class thinking that the teacher is confusing or the subject is too hard then you can bet that the experience will be negative. But if you have a positive attitude and are attentive and accepting, it’s going to be a way better experience. Phrases that come to mind are “help me help you” or “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” meaning that everyone here at UNE is so willing to help you, you just have to want the help and be willing to accept it. Taking advantage of my teachers office hours and being able to self advocate has been very beneficial.

It also helps to make allies. I honestly don’t know how I would have made it through school if it weren’t for the help of my peers. Having people that you can ask questions about the lecture, swap notes with and study with is so important. A lot of the time when I’m struggling to understand a concept or struggling to understand how a teacher wants something presented,  I will ask a peer for advice. Frequently my peer explains it to me just makes so much more sense.  The lone wolf strategy will not serve you well in college. 

Balancing your school and free time appropriately is a challenge and something that I have definitely not mastered yet. I think it is so important to have that balance of fun and work. Not all fun, not all work you have to find your middle ground. Like I said before these are just a few things that have helped me find my way so far but honestly the most important thing that helped me was knowing what works best for me! I will do my best to continue to find ways to help myself focus and better understand what is being asked of me. Like Jack Nicholson said, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”

3.) Dry- Run Video

4.) Peer Review

My best advice: I think the best advice I gave to a peer was to be more specific with connections and to add more solutions. In one of my peers’ speeches they talk about fixed mindset and growth mindset and give a brief explanation of it. I believe if he was to give a better explanation of what fixed mindset and growth mindset really mean and give an example of when he has experienced both fixed mindset and growth mindset it would really help the reader get a better understanding of what he is trying to say and why it is important. Another piece of advice I gave a peer was to give more solutions. He talks a lot about problems he has faced and how that has been hard for him but doesn’t give many examples of what he has done to overcome the struggles/ what has helped him through it. So I feel that adding that bit will be beneficial for his speech. Another one of my peers gave a speech that really got me thinking and has stuck with me about creating a professional identity and learning how to market yourself and how those are important skills that your going to need that school isnt necessarily going to teach you.  

Best advice from my peers: The best advice that I received from my peers during the dry dry run was to be more personal. They said that they had a lot of good advice but it was hard to follow along because of the way that I was listing it. Adding more personal connections will help the reader follow along and want to continue reading. Another peer of mine read his speech and got the feedback that he was too personal in his and im hoping i can find some middle ground between mine and his for my final draft. I agree with my peers that more personal aspects will definitely enrich my speech. I also got the feedback to slow down my delivery which is completely understandable. I got to read my speech draft to two different groups and I was very nervous both times. I tried to really slow it down for the second group because I noticed I was going fast the first time around but still got the feedback to slow down so I will have to try harder. 

5.) Reflection as a whole

Journal #10:

I think that this project was very helpful for me in figuring out ways to better know myself academically. As I said in my speech academics have always caused strife in my life and I have never really taken a step back to consider and examine the root causes of my problems and this project gave me the ability to do that. What I mean by that is I know we all have a lot of problems but this project helped me identify which of my problems are the biggest and start to come up with solutions and ideas that aren’t so overwhelming for me. In the past when an assignment would get difficult I would get frustrated and oftentimes give up. It sounds corny to say but this speech made me realize that it’s okay to have problems and it’s okay to struggle. Every person in that room had different problems and different struggles but we all bonded over the fact that we have overcome those struggles and are continuing to make mistakes and struggle everyday and that makes us human. I feel more connected to my peers in the class because of this assignment. I also think the peer review experience bonded us even though I wasn’t to be able to give my speech then it was really cool hearing other people’s speeches when they were not done yet and I think all the feedback that was given was really good feedback. It was much different than any other peer editing experience I’ve ever had and to go along with that it was really cool to see how people developed their speech from the rough draft to the final draft. I would definitely recommend you to keep doing this assignment with future classes.