Nothing Prepared Me for College

So we're in the process of writing to the Forestview school and in all honesty I have the approach that nothing prepared me for college. I'm not sure if I can take that stance with my paper so I decided just to talk about it here instead.

Here's my steps to college that we did in class:

It begins with me as a little girl and everyone telling me what I needed to do in order to get to college.

Growing up, I went to a private college-prep school, worked hard, took AP classes, did a lot of community service, and took the SAT until I did well. I did all of these things in an attempt to be prepared for college, because everyone around me told me that was what I needed to do.

Through all of those things had an effect on my road to college, nothing that I did could have prepared me for the experiences that college has brought to me.

I could go on and on with examples but I just give a big one to keep this pretty short. Throughout my schooling career, I had pretty good teachers overall. They loved what they did, and they all went to school to learn how to teach. However, going into college I immediately enrolled in a pre-bio program. It was a shock to me that most of my teachers couldn't teach. They were all very knowledgeable about their subject, and could tell you anything about it; but most lacked the ability to effectively teach it. Unlike my teachers growing up who went to school to teach, these professors went to school to learn about their subject. I found that this made a big difference in my overall work load in the course as well as my interest.

Mean Girls

So in class the other day we continued our topic of the representations of schooling in popular culture. I continued to gear my views toward gender. One of my favorite movies in middle school was Mean Girls. For those who haven't seen the movie it's about a "new girl" in school named Cady (Lindsey Lohan), and basically her sturggle to understand a new high school culture.

She tries to get into with the most popular girls in school named "the Plastics". However she also makes friends with the "out crowd" Damian and Janis:

Longgggggggggggg story short, the plastics fall apart and the out crowd "wins" in the end. 

I think in terms of "the plastics" girls are highly sexualized, and as Cady is trying to get in with them you see her completely change herself to do so. However, they didn't prove to be anything too great by the end of the movie. This made me reevaluate my hope for popular culture. I really liked how this film showed the underdogs coming out on the brighter side, as opposed to the girls who seemed to have everything. 

 

Disney Princesses gave me false hopes

So in class we watched The Hidden Meanings in Kid’s movies by Colin Stokes. He talked about girls and boys stereotypes in the movies they watch. 

I have always agreed with a lot of his points, especially concerning the Disney princesses. In these movies girls are always seen as vulnerable and in need of a man to save them. The false hope that these movies give are pretty insane if you ask me. 

                                                                                                                       For example, Cinderella gives the hope that if your family life is less than perfect, you should have no fear because one day you'll turn into a princess and a handsome prince will make all of your troubles go away....as long as your home before midnight.

                                         

               Auora, as sleeping beauty gave me the idea that all I would ever have to do is pick berries in the forest and sleep to get a guy...but that's just not how it works.        

I follow a girl who does weekly youtube video named Jenna Marbles. She posted a video awhile back about What Disney Movies taught her. She has some good points on the false hopes that Disney Movies provide. Sorry about the language if your offended but here it is

                                         

I'm ALWAYS in Woodward Hall or Burson

The other day in class we read the poem Schoolsville by Billy Collins. In the poem Collins talks about his reflections of his days teaching. I’m going to take you guys through my thinking when reading this poem…

I feel like I never get or notice what I’m “suppose” to when it comes to poetry. There always seems to be one line in every poem that makes me think of things that would be a bit of a stretch for anyone else. In this poem the line was, “All the creative-writing students recline on the courthouse lawn and play the lute.”

This made me think of identity, and how I’ve always thought that you can usually tell a lot about a person by knowing where they spend most of their time.  I then thought about where I spend most of my time at school, and sadly enough it’s in the two academic buildings, Burson and Woodward Hall. This was a really unhappy realization to come to. But on the bright side, I think it changed my previous opinion about being able to know someone based on where they spend their time. Yes, I’ve been in those buildings way too many hours, but they don’t even come close to revealing too much of anything about me.  Maybe it would be better to base something on where people hang out for leisure but I'm not sure :)

Here’s what I wrote in my daybook…

I feel like im always in Woodward Hall or Burson. I would overwhelm myself if I tried to count up the hours that I have been in those sometimes dreaded buildings. I’m surprised that Burson hasn’t started charging me rent; I’m there more than I am home. 

Gaming and Education?

I’ve really been trying to wrap my head around this whole connection between video games and learning…and to be honest I’m just not really getting it.

I’m just picturing a semi-fun and challenging game but then you get to this road block and it tells you to solve an impossible calculus problem to continue. I don’t know about you guys, but that would just frustrate me enough to quit.

Also, usually if I know something is educational going into it, I usually write it off as dumb and a waste of time before I begin.

Games are always being manipulated and different versions come out rather frequently…but in my opinion, things are being discovered and new theories come into the world at a much faster rate. I just don’t see how a game could keep up.

I get the use of technology in the classroom; I just don’t get the whole game thing. If someone wants to try to explain this to me you’re more than welcome to! 

I want to invent something!

So….I haven’t felt too inspired by this week’s main topic about relating games to learning. I don’t know. I’m not too much of a “gamer”, so I can’t relate that much. So this blog will probably be a little all over the place.

Since it’s a new semester I’ll introduce myself a little. I’m Kristen :) I’m a bio major, I love doing anything outdoors like hiking or biking. I’m really easy-going, and that’s pretty much me.

This is how I decorated my day book…it’s just a lot of pictures of some friends.

We did a Writing into the Day this week on Monday called, We are Makers, by Dale Dougherty via TED. Here's my writing on it...

He talked about how we’re creatures with the need to make. It got me thinking about inventions and how I’ve always wanted to invent something and make millions. Sadly, that hasn’t happened yet and I’m still waiting for that million dollar idea to hit me in the head. I think it’s really neat how people can have the seemingly stupid idea of a blanket with sleeves and somehow make money on that. 

I can have major ADD when it comes to having a computer in front of me...So I googled some inventions due to curiosity and I decided to add some that I thought were funny. Enjoy :) 

Because using a knife to spread your butter is too hard these days...

For beginners in make-up...

A result of some great parenting...

This would make me feel lonelier than going to bed by myself...

Final Reflection

The idea of “wobbling” has been present throughout this course for me.

Before Lacy described what she meant by “wobble”, I of course, thought of the song. So, for your listening enjoyment, here’s a link to the video to the song if you would like J

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_64SdD27w

From Day 1 of doing improv, I was forced to come out of my comfort zone. Initially, I really didn’t like the idea   these activities and didn’t see the point.

But through the semester, I really started to like all of the improv activities. It was a nice mental break for me. I liked starting the classes off with these things, and by getting up and doing stuff I was able to stay more focus throughout the class.

This semester made me realize how much I’ve become use to a structured and defined classroom environment. Lacy really let us be more expressive as students than ive ever been allowed to. For example, when concerning our midterm project she told us “there’s no wrong way to go about doing this.” That’s what ive been wanting a teacher to tell me my entire academic career! However, those words stressed me out!

I’ve always had teachers give me so many boundaries especially when it came to major grades. It was really weird to have the exact opposite. Once I got over it, and realized that it really was okay to take the assignment it a new direction it really helped me enjoy the project more and it really helped to lower the stress level of projects.

Overall, I really started to enjoy these things that got me out of my comfort zone. Im still not always 100% there with getting out of my comfort zone, but this semester really did help. I really enjoyed it and am very thankful for the experience.

I hope you guys have a great Christmas break and spring semester J

and remember....