Autumn 2018 Reflection

Many things have changed about me since the start of Autumn quarter. First of all, I learned the when you are involved in two communities, one usually take precedence. I have had a hard time fully immersing myself in both the honors and greek communities without spreading myself too thin. For the following quarters, I really want to become more involved in honors in ways that extend further than simply taking my classes and doing my work. This is one goal of mine that has changed significantly, especially because I am not in the dorms with the rest of the honors students. My other goals, as I talked about in Assignment One have not changed much, I am still here to learn how to help people and I intend on doing my best to achieve that goal, just as I did at the beginning of the quarter. This goal has been a driving force for me to work hard and not get distracted by social events in the process. This has surprised me a lot because I have always had a very busy schedule, and school work used to fit in where I had time for it. Now, I tend to make time and really do my best in my work, which I am proud of myself for, because doing my best will help me reach my goals and teach me how to be efficient in doing so. I hope that this drive is persistent, and my passion for helping people continues to push me to do my personal best and achieve my goal of getting into a good law school. For now though, my goal is to simply continue to do my best in my classes and not stress out too much about grades and numbers, something that I tend to do that makes me my own enemy.  

As for things outside of myself that I have observed this quarter, most surprises come from how difficult it is to create relationships with people that you do not live with. This was surprising to me, because I thought that the people in your classes would become your friends, this is sometimes true, but I find that friendly conversation during class is about as far as those friendships gp, especially in big lectures when you are not given much time for discussion. I have found my group of friends within my sorority, which is expected, but I really thought that it would be more natural to make friends from class. This is the same for people that I have used as resources for school and internships. As far as extracurriculars go, I was expecting more service opportunities as a group within my house, and there are some, but a lot of what I have learned about internships and service have come from Honors 100. But as far as study help and homework tips, the older girls in my house and my older sister have been the most helpful. I did not really come in with many expectations in this department, but it has been interesting to see where I have automatically gone for help in regards to school, which also may be a fault of mine for not utilizing resources outside of my social connections.

In terms of resources that I would like to learn more about, the writing help centers for my major (LSJ), honors, and any other classes that I am taking, I hope to use more in the future. It honestly comes down to time management and laziness when deciding to use these resources, and I think they will be very beneficial to me in the future. I also would like to get more involved in outside organizations, especially with service. I need to start factoring service and work into my time, which has been difficult for me during the transition into college. In the future, my goal is to have one steady job and steady service opportunity integrated into my schedule at all times, so that I am not hyper-focusing on school or social events, and have a more well-rounded schedule.

Overall, this quarter has been very fulfilling. From the classes I have taken, to the connections I have made. But, in the future I would like to do more with my time and be more efficient in my management of that time.