Looking back on the semester I feel that I have done a pretty good job as far as my Inquiry class is concerned. That is not to say that I didn't have my ups and downs with certain assignments for the class. But I think that overall I am satisfied with my work in the class. I think that earlier on in the semester I was not at all excited for the class but I think that I was still scare of college so I was making sure that I did every assignment because I still was not sure what the consequences would be yet. Towards the end of the semester I more so realized what I really needed to do and what I could let slip. This may have impacted my grade a bit more than I wanted it to but I still think that I will be satisfied with my final grade. The most important thing that I took away from this class was a better understanding of what college life really means.
Earlier on in the semester I think I made a much better effort to make sure that I got all of my assignments done. I wish I could say I did it out of determination, but I think that it was honestly out of fear of failure. I was still adjusting to college life and I was doing every assignment for every class. If you look back you will notice that I did every campus safari up until a certain point and then I just basically stopped. Also I chose to do only the ones that did not require me to come to school events. I chose to do these ones because of the fact that I am a commuter and I live about thirty minutes away from SCSU. So most of the time driving here is a big inconvenience for me. So I did all of the ones where I could go and pick something up while I was around campus. But besides campus safaris I did basically everything else. I made sure I worked hard on my mid-term video as well as made sure that all of the readings were done and ready to do the in-class writings. Working hard on these assignments has definitely paid off seeing as I got an A- on my mid-term video. Basically I was a, for lack of better word, goody-goody student for the first half of the semester. But I really don't see anything wrong with that because it helped me build up a strong grade to allow me to slack off a little bit later on in the semester.
Another thing about the first part of the semester was that I really feel I took a lot from some of the reading assignments. Especially the ones about time management really helped reassure me that I was on the right path for college. We did that sort of self assessment in class on how well we manage all of our time each week in college and it showed me that I am spending the right amount of time on my studies. This really gave me the confidence to actually relax and calm down about my school work because before this I was basically completely consumed by my work.
After all the good things that happened this semester I started to go downhill. But I didn't go off the deep end completely. I just seemed to be more preoccupied with making new friends and trying to balance out my social life with my school life a little better than I was already doing. This isn't the worst thing that could happen because I really only started to miss my campus safari assignments, in addition to coming to class unprepared for the in-class writing assignments a couple times. I still managed to do every single blog post on time and to the best of my ability which is definitely a big accomplishment seeing as those count for forty percent of our overall grade for the class. So yes I did choose to not do some assignments which I do regret doing. I think the only reason I regret not doing them is more because of the fun times that I could have had when doing them. I don't really believe that not doing them will affect my grade all that much in the end.
I came into this class not knowing what it was about at all, and once I heard what it was going to be about I wasn't at all excited for it. But even though I didn't like the class I think that in the end I really managed to get a lot out of the class without even intending to. The blog posts and the video assignments were very helpful for me to learn about college life and what college assignments really are. Also the readings taught me a lot about what I needed to do in order to be a successful college student. The best part of this class was that I made a few very good friends who I plan to keep a relationship with throughout the rest of my life.
Overall this semester in Inquiry class was a success for me. I managed to obtain some pretty good grades through all the ups and downs that I had in the semester. The class taught me exactly what it was supposed to even though I didn't realize it until now. But most important I made some great friends who I can hang out with for the rest of my life and I also got a great teacher and peer mentor who will both help me whenever I need them. So I think I did pretty well for myself in my first semester Inquiry class at SCSU.
