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Maintaining Motivation- Module 7 blog post

I find it interesting how this module mentions emotional and mental health as ways for motivation. However I feel that it is also important to mention physical health and how it pertains to motivation as well.

When it comes to my physical health, college has brought me many highs and lows with both weight and health. However I can tell that, at least for me, physical and mental health are tightly linked and both can cause the other to fall drastically. For my first semester, I was incredibly stressed with my pre-major and my physical health took the brunt force of the situation as I gained 15 pounds and felt horrible 24 hours a day. This continued to lead me down a path that caused me to barely pass my first semester, and caused many more problems in the spring semester that I had to overcome. And then due to my physical health not being what it used to be, it caused my emotional health to dwindle and my motivation to continue to decrease.

So all in all, these three areas of health are something that everyone needs to keep an eye on. If one of these categories falls of the rails, there is a good chance the rest of the train is going down with it.

Blog Post Module 6

Throughout my time at OSU, and schooling in general, I have consistently heard about the importance of a quality source for any academic paper or presentation that I would be citing. All of which point towards a website, most of the time Wikipedia, and exclaim how it cannot be used due to its inaccuracies.

Although this does have a rightful reason, the truth is that no matter what, any source you site has to be credible and peer-reviewed to allow for the best and most accurate results. And for this, the library system at OSU, or on any major college campus that has a database, is the best place to go for information and peer-reviewed articles and papers on a majority of the topics that could be discussed. This tool helped me through a COMM course that required many sources throughout the writing of our final papers, and the only way I could have found that in a reasonable amount of time was through the library database. Even for a small and specific topic had many peer-reviewed articles from many periods of time that could help in my argument.

The main reason to use this resource over a simple google search, or google scholar, is that what is in the OSU library search is guaranteed to be credible and peer-reviewed if you want it to be. Without it being peer-reviewed, there is a chance the information may be incorrect, or that the paper could be stealing and publishing information that does not belong to them. So the best option is to play it safe, and use a secure and trustworthy source you find in the database.

Blog Post Module 5

When it comes to the internet, it is a vast ever-growing expansion of knowledge and information that can be accessed by nearly everyone in the world. And with that comes an ever-increasing amount of distractions that can pull us away from the important work that needs to be done. However, for this post, I am going to be focusing on how certain sites greatly increase the amount of learning that can be achieved, as well as give mention to some that I have used to help me.

Study programs, such as Quizlet, are great resources for learning. Not only do they allow you to create your own set of flashcards and study tables, but the site and apps even make mock test and other ways of studying your information until you have mastered it. These truly allow you to take the learning into your own hands, whether it is vocabulary words or atomic numbers.

Next, video streaming sites such as YouTube offer vast amounts of information in many different ways. There are specific, hands-on tutorials about almost anything you could think of, and people who make a living off of creating helpful content for their views (such as Crash Course). However, this is something where you have to have discipline, as it is very easy to be watching a video on the science of earthquakes, then somehow, almost magically, be transported to watching videos on conspiracy theories. Although these sites require great restraint, these services can help greatly in the learning process.

Finally, hands-on learning tools. From personal experience with programing and Java, I have found sites that allow me to do practice codes. Allowing me to refine my knowledge of certain topics that occur in programming, as well as allowing me to test different ways to solving similar problems. This would be like using a for loop instead of  a while loop, or using a method/function to make a code easier to manage. As a person who is very hands-on, these give me the greatest improvement.

All of these can be used alongside your homework and lecture notes to create a positive learning environment that allows you to retain information and do well on your test and exams, and maybe learn a thing or two about yourself in the process.

Blog Post Module 3

When it comes to module three, it truly brings up the points that have created the student that I am today. Throughout high school I procrastinated more than any other person I knew, to where I was doing assignments as they were being turned in (was never really my brightest idea). Although it didn’t hurt me too much then, once first semester of college hit, I was left in the dust almost immediately, clambering onto anything I could to try and help me pass. However, using many of the tips I have learned from my spring semester and building off of more techniques I learned through my academic coach, I have made great strides in my academic success.

One of the greatest feelings in the world is knowing you aren’t alone. And throughout my time at OSU, a place where I thought I would be seeing the world’s most perfect students, I realize that we are all very similar. Many of us have troubles with procrastination and other obligations of life that tend to interfere with our academic success. So if there is one idea I could preach to the choir, it is that no student is alone in the struggle. If a student is struggling, it is a guarantee that someone else will be having that same struggle. So try to find people who are struggling so that way you both can help each other succeed and grow as students. I took on the fight against procrastination alone, but once I had others who had been through the same situation, it truly helped me turn my academic career in the right direction again.