Ask Dr. Ross
"Ask Dr. Ross" answers the important and nagging questions parents and potential college students raise about higher education. Topics include preparing for college, avoiding student debt, and secrets to good grades. Hosted by award-winning professor Catherine Ross, Ph.D., and student producer Ashley Worley, listeners can ask their own questions by emailing ADRquestions@gmail.com.
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Ask Dr. Ross
Mid-Semester: What Can I Expect From Freshman Year? Pt. 2
The first week of freshman year can be overwhelming - but what about week two? Or three? Or eight? By the time you've reached mid-semester, it can feel like a sink or swim situation.
That's why Dr. Ross and producer Michaela Murphy are checking back in with their freshman guests from episode one. In the thick of their first semester, Dominic Robinette and Mary Mooney share firsthand experiences with freshman year. Whether it's switching majors, adapting to an independent lifestyle, or struggling with comparison, their stories offer concrete advice and encouragement for students approaching this challenging life transition.
To hear part one of Mary and Dominic's discussion, check out their previous episode: S2 Ep. 1: What Can I Expect From Freshman Year?
Have more questions about the freshman experience? Email us at ADRquestions@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!
Special thanks to Michaela Murphy, who produced and co-hosted season two's opening episodes. The show goes on because of you!
Stay tuned to the Ask Dr Ross podcast. It's created to give you info to succeed at college. Our hosts are highly qualified. Dr Catherine Ross is a member of the University of Texas System's Academy of Distinguished Teachers. She's also a popular professor of 19th century English literature. Ask Dr Ross is a community service of the University of Texas at Tyler.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm happy to see you both here this afternoon again. This is our second episode with our first-year students. We don't call you freshmen anymore, you have to be a first-year person, and what we wanted to do is, after a few more weeks of class, we wanted to interview you again and hear what you have learned in the time since we first met you. So I'll ask you each to introduce yourself and remind us what your name is, where your hometown is and what your major is, if you know. So we'll start with Dominic.
Speaker 3:My name's Dominic. I'm from Midland originally and actually I've switched majors since the last time we had this meeting, so before I was pre-med. But I made a pretty big shift to electrical engineering.
Speaker 2:Wow, well, we'll be talking about that shortly. Great Dominic Mary.
Speaker 4:So my name's Mary, my hometown is Jacksonville, texas, and I've kept my major I'm still majoring in English.
Speaker 2:Well, of course, it's the best major on the campus, right? So you're from a really far away, dominic. How's that been being that far from home after what? Eight weeks now?
Speaker 3:It hasn't been bad. I've gone home for one weekend so far, but I've actually adjusted quite well. I would say, you know, I've gotten into a pretty good schedule, Like I keep in touch with my family, Like I still call them all the time, and you know, I've just I've adapted to it, I'm used to it now.
Speaker 2:Do you have pretty busy weekends here?
Speaker 3:My weekends aren't normally too busy, but I mean, I do spend them trying to get ahead in classes usually, and I'm not just saying that either, but that's mostly what I do on the weekends.
Speaker 2:Dominic's teacher is here, so he's. Are you being careful about what you say in front of your teacher?
Speaker 3:No, if anything, she probably knows what my work ethic is like.
Speaker 2:You're welcome to comment on that, Michaela.
Speaker 5:He is a great student. I'm sure he's doing exactly what he needs to do.
Speaker 2:Mary is also here and she's, of course, my student, so she's being careful what she says to me. But you know you can say whatever you want, so talk about how things are changing because you're from Jacksonville so you're real close to home. Do you go home every weekend?
Speaker 4:For the most part. It's not every weekend I go back home, but it's like maybe every other weekend. My best friend from my hometown, she went to Sam Houston. So sometimes when she comes up I usually go home and I do a visit like that. But I try to stay on campus as much as I can because I feel I want that autonomy to live by myself and my mom's like, oh, come home, but it's like I moved away for a reason, so let me stay on campus. But yeah, maybe every other weekend I go back home.
Speaker 2:How about you?
Speaker 3:Did you move away for autonomy For a little bit? I was excited to get out and be able to kind of just live life, see what it was like. I didn't expect to go as far as I did, but you know I enjoy it here. It's nice.
Speaker 2:Well now, folks who haven't heard our previous interview don't know why you came so far away. You want to tell this audience why you came all the way from West Texas to Far East Texas. That's like going across two states in some places.
Speaker 3:Midland. It's an okay place. You know it's not the best looking. Really that was a big thing. But also I was ready for a change. Like I've lived in West Texas my whole life, only saw like one type of area, only lived in Midland Really flat, hot, mm-hmm. And so I was ready to come to a different place and Tyler was great because it's green here, you know, there's like rolling hills everywhere, lots of trees, and I'm just like you know. I was very happy.
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of people don't realize how much of a difference a campus can make. You know the place and, of course, you both live here on campus, right, and where you live, and which apartments or dorm. I live in Ornelas Hall, the first-year student's dorm. What about you, mary? Same First year student's dorm. What about you, mary? Same? Yeah, I am too. Yeah, how is the dorm life treating you Mary?
Speaker 4:I love my dorm. Actually I have one of the three bedroom suites so I have like my own room. So it's not technically a dorm experience like every other college, but it's somewhat. One of my roommates is the RA. Ra is the residential assistant and pretty much it's like the dorm police, but she's super chill. But she does like health and safety checks, which is like going into the other people on my floors, dorms, and checks that make sure like they're not breaking any rules. So having her as a roommate kind of is like a different experience, I guess, because she's a junior, not a freshman, so it's a different perspective on college. But yeah, I love my dorm, like absolutely love it.
Speaker 2:Just a little side note here. The health and safety checks are to make sure things like you don't have 16 things plugged into one outlet and are about to start the place on fire or you're keeping things clean, things like that. So it may feel like a little bit of an intrusion, but it's actually for your safety, isn't it? And does she do it fairly discreetly?
Speaker 4:Well, she doesn't do the health and safety checks on our dorm because it's like she could just like let stuff slide. So we actually have the whole RA director for the whole entire building come into our dorm. So it's like we have to make sure our stuff is tippity-top good in shape. But I feel like us three because I have two other roommates, an RA and then another freshman I feel like we do a pretty good job keeping our stuff in check.
Speaker 2:How's your dorm going, Dominic?
Speaker 3:It hasn't been bad at all. You know I also am in a three-person suite. I'm not with the RA, you know, I'm with two other first-year students and we actually hang out quite a bit. Like earlier this week we went to Walmart with another friend, you know, and we were just kind of messing around because my friend, he wanted to go shopping for his frat because he needed to, and so we went and did that with him. And you know we go out to eat sometimes and we just kind of hang out.
Speaker 2:Now are freshmen allowed to have cars here.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because a lot of times the first year students will not be allowed to have automobiles for various reasons. But if y'all have cars, you're pretty mobile. Then you are pretty autonomous, aren't you? So what we asked you early on was did you think you were well prepared from high school for college? And do you remember what you said last time, dominic? And then we'll go to Mary.
Speaker 3:I think I said that I was kind of prepared because in high school you know, everything was super structured. I didn't have to do anything outside of my classes, really Like I hardly had any classwork, any homework like anything outside of my classes, and that was really like the biggest shock about getting here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what about you, mary? Do you remember what you said?
Speaker 4:I'm pretty sure I probably said I was somewhat prepared, but now I know that I was definitely like, academically prepared. I knew that I chose the right major because of my high school classes and I feel like my educational academics and high school prepared me well but mentally, having like all the autonomy and everything like that, I definitely was not prepared from high school. It's a completely different shift and I don't know, I feel like it's such a different thing college and high school that it really couldn't even have prepared me mentally.
Speaker 2:So when you say such a big shift, what are some of the ways that feels like? So if you're talking to some of the kids back in your high school that you know you look at it it's different. But can you tell them what some of the details might be?
Speaker 4:For the biggest shifts. Shifts it's like everything is independent. So while that might sound like such a dream in high school because like, oh, you don't have to listen to anyone you still have to, like, have that self-control to get business things done. Because if you don't have that self-control then it's not going to get done and then it's on you, you get in trouble and it's. It's not a good thing. So I feel like, while it's like such a pretty picture in high, I would tell the kids back in my high school it is fun, but you still have to have a balance. You have to be prepared to balance business things and fun things.
Speaker 2:There's a lot more work in there. Yeah, I know Dominic was nodding his head about that, weren't you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was the biggest thing was just trying to get myself on a schedule that makes sense to me and is still structured, and so that's the biggest thing. I would tell anybody back at my high schools. I'd be like you're going to have free time unless you're taking like 30 hours of classes, but you're going to have free time and you need to figure out how to use that free time in a productive way. You can't just be like oh, I went to classes, I'm just going to go sit in my room.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things we tell students is for every hour you spend in class, you should spend three hours outside of class. Now when we do research on whether or not students really do that, usually the ones who get closest to that are the ones that are making A's and maybe B's, the ones who just kind of do a little bit. You know about an hour for an hour. A lot of times they're not doing as well as you think. This is a whole different level of information gathering of information, retrieval of application of that material. Have you found that you're getting close to that amount of work for every hour or have you even thought about it like those numbers?
Speaker 3:You probably haven't, but I feel like I get kind of close to those numbers. I don't think of it as, like you know, three hours specifically. I just think of it as if I do at least a little bit every day. That's a lot better than just being like, oh, I'm going to do it all in one day.
Speaker 2:And you know, and that normally doesn't work out, yeah yeah, pedagogically, if you spread it out a little bit of time, a little bit of time retrieve, remind, and you know, when you break it up, then when you start, come back the second time, you have to kind of review what you did the first day and kind of catch up and then you move on like that. Now you just broke some interesting news, you have changed your major, and I always tell my first year students look out, it's going to happen and it's okay, so let's hear about that.
Speaker 3:The biggest thing that made me want to change was just the amount of time in school. You know, in order to be a doctor, it's around like eight years and then after that you have to spend another like four years in residency, and there's nothing wrong with that Like I have a lot of respect for people that do that but that's not something that I personally want to do. Like I want to get my education. You know, possibly get a master's I haven't thought about that yet but just, you know, get the education and start building up my talent. Getting skilled at something and engineering is more of like a it's going going to sound kind of mean, but like you build your skills, more to it. Like you don't just know everything, like you just kind of you build up, like how to think through things and how to think super critically.
Speaker 2:There's nothing mean about that. I mean, what you're describing is the way a discipline works. Have you been taking an engineering class this semester or are you just kind of guessing?
Speaker 3:I haven't taken an engineering class this semester, or are you just kind of guessing? I haven't taken an engineering class this semester, so I am just kind of guessing right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, that's interesting. How did you discover that, all of a sudden, medicine was going to be too many years of school? How did you learn that?
Speaker 3:It was mostly cost is what I thought about. After this semester I saw how much college is, even with scholarships and get like it's still it's not going to be free for me, and so I wanted to kind of get through, get the skills that I needed and just like start, like building myself.
Speaker 2:Now, this is not to suggest that you have to pay more money and be better, but one of the things I was going to say is that all the research that's been done about when people get things for free and when things have to work for things ie earn the money to get there that actually you tend to take it more seriously because you've got more skin in the game. And so, while I don't want any of you all to go into debt going through college, the fact that it does cost some money is part of what helps to keep you motivated to keep going. And I often say to my students who are flaking off I say do you realize how many dollars you just wasted this week by not doing your homework? I strongly recommend you get yourself over to the engineering department and start talking to some of those students.
Speaker 2:First, find out who the good teachers are and this is always a key thing, especially your very first class in a field. Find out who the best teachers are, because a lot of times what you think the course is going to be like and what is going to be covered is different, and so if you have a teacher who renders whatever that material is in ways that other students have recognized as really valuable and helpful, then that will help you firm up that decision. What about you, mary? So you said that you're just fine with your English major. That makes me very happy, but you want to tell the audience here just kind of why you find that the English major is working for you.
Speaker 4:Now, even though I'm a first-year student, I'm taking only major specific English classes. Some are prereqs for my major but they're mainly just specifically English and throughout those classes I've kind of like found they're not necessarily easy, but like I'm getting my assignments done and I think I'm getting them done well but I'm also enjoying the actual content. So I feel like that kind of solidified my decision on staying in English and being able to see all my professors like teaching what they love and everything. It's just like I see myself in all my professors. I'm like, yeah, that's what I want to do.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great news. That's great news. So you're taking four English classes.
Speaker 4:Let's see, I'm taking a literature class, a writing class. I have my honors world text image class, which is, I consider, a writing class, is pretty much what we do. So I guess I'm only taking three English classes and then I have an education class.
Speaker 2:That's a good thing to do is to check out to see, because a lot of times people think English majors will become teachers. Not all of us do. Some of us do something else and then we come back to teaching or we teach different levels. But that's a good thing to test it out a little bit to see what that other discipline is like. That's why I was saying to you, dominic, be sure that you take at least one engineering class before you get too far down the line. Now, mary, you came in with a lot of prereqs done right Because you'd done a lot of dual credit right and had you done any dual credit much.
Speaker 3:I didn't do any dual credit, I did only AP classes.
Speaker 2:So with AP classes you get credit right. So did you start as a sophomore then?
Speaker 3:No, I got very few AP credits honestly. I mean, I still came in basically as a freshman just a few hours ahead of everybody.
Speaker 2:And actually I wanted to point this out to anybody who's listening is that both of you kind of examples of two different ways of going to college. Some folks are getting a lot of it quote out of the way, which always bothers me as a professor, that you think that those earlier classes are. You're getting them out of the way because what they are is the core curriculum. Michaela, did you have a lot of your hours out of the way before you started and became a professor here?
Speaker 5:I did when I started here. No, sorry, when I started at TJC with my associates, by the time I graduated high school I already had 44 hours out of the way out of my 60 for my associates, so I was almost done. I stayed in college about a year after high school for my associates. I stayed in college about a year after high school for my associates.
Speaker 2:So you really sped up the process and in your case, you're taking it a little bit slower in the sense. But you're also here's the big difference Mary who taught your college classes when you were in high school.
Speaker 4:My English class it was actually like a co-professor, but all my other ones were just high school teachers.
Speaker 2:High school teachers. Okay, so you're getting your core classes taught by college professors, and that can be a quantitative difference. It may not always be. Some of the high school teachers are fabulous and I think in order to teach those classes, they have to have 18 hours of graduate school in the field. So I'm not going to denigrate any of those folks, but the difference is that you were taking it on a high school schedule, and the high school schedule is so different from a college, as you've learned right, you have classes every other day sometimes, or it's just an hour a day, and then two hours later on, and there's all this free time in there, and so we can give you more complex assignments. That's why we get the three hours in. You know you got to spend one hour with us and three hours studying In high school. That's not possible, and so there's a different level there, and while I think there's an advantage in both and I'm not going to come down on either one I do want to point out that Mary saved a lot of money and time and she's gone straight into her major. Thank goodness, it was the one you wanted.
Speaker 2:Imagine if you'd started. Dominic went straight in and you went oh my gosh, I don't want to be a doctor after all. So you're in a perfect position too, so you can be studying and looking around and see what you want to study and also taking as many of those core classes as possible right now. So you get a sense of well, do I like history? Do I like philosophy? Do I like the STEM classes? Michaela, do you want to add anything?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So that's actually one of the biggest pieces of advice that I always give seniors in high school or freshmen, especially in like my 1301 class and at that level, is do as much as you possibly can to see what the job you think you want as well as the major you think you want is doing or is about. Because, like I said in the graduate podcast, I actually started in nursing when I got to TJC and I decided when I was there, after shadowing at the hospital, after doing the workload through anatomy and physiology classes, that it wasn't enough. With people, the job was great, and for other people who want to do that sort of thing, then that is a't enough. With people, the job was great, and for other people who want to do that sort of thing, then that is a wonderful job for them. But for me it was not enough interaction with people on the day to day. It was a lot of computer, it was a lot of math and I didn't want to go that route.
Speaker 5:I wanted to do more English, more people to people, and so I was on the fence when I started school and, once again, having 44 hours, my basics were already out of the way, so I didn't have a lot of time to decide what I wanted to do out of high school. I just had to jump into something, which is great for people who know what they want to do, but if they don't then it's a little bit of a disadvantage at times. So I jumped into nursing, decided that's not what I want to do, but thankfully TJC has an interdisciplinary studies associates that I was able to get and move to UT Tyler for my bachelor's to start the English education program here course. I've loved it and stuck with it. But before I even started at UT Tyler doing education I went and applied to be a substitute teacher. So I put myself into the classroom before I even took those classes. That way I would know is this what I want to jump into before I got to UT Tyler.
Speaker 2:Also, don't you have the advantage of having a mother and a sister who've been educators?
Speaker 5:I do yes. So my mom was a teacher for 28 years and my sister has been a teacher for, I believe, seven years at this point. So my sister teaches elementary. So she is taught anywhere from second to fifth grade PE, social studies, english, a lot of different subjects. And then my mom taught preschool and fifth grade in elementaries throughout her 20 years.
Speaker 2:So, Dominic, maybe you ought to start looking for a chance to kind of visit some engineering situations. We have all sorts of opportunities for internships that are being investigated. But I want to tell you both about something Next week is our Career Success Day, and it's something we've been doing for quite some time. Day on Thursday, the 24th, and there will be starting out with a speaker who's going to talk to you all about launching a career.
Speaker 5:He's one of the founders, I believe, of LinkedIn, so he knows a lot about how to get into the workforce.
Speaker 2:And then there are going to be all these panels. There are going to be two sections of panels. For example, there's one on English majors who are doing different things. One of them is a former student of mine who became a president of a company largely because of his writing skills. One is an editor, I believe. I'm not sure what the other two jobs are, but it's an interesting thing to see what people can do with an English major. But there are also panels by engineers practicing in the field.
Speaker 2:You might want to double check the medical stuff, because I'm actually teaching at the medical school here in the medical humanities program and I'm watching the medical students and they're having a heck of a good time. It's pretty exciting. Our effort there is to help you all see how in four, three, however many years it is from the time you graduate to the time you start looking for a career or looking for graduate school or professional programs that will get you launched is you know what to expect Because, just like you didn't really know what was going on when you got to college, even though you thought you did, you know all the stuff you see about how doctors and lawyers and different kind of folks work on television is not the way it really is. Michaela, you actually went and sat in on classes. No, not classes, you sat in on nursing.
Speaker 5:Yes. So one of the hospitals in our region has a volunteer program and so I talked to them about a shadowing position and they kind of worked it out for me. Through that volunteer program I was able to be one-on-one with a nurse for four to eight hours and volunteer, slash shadow with her and go in, and actually I was in the labor and delivery department so I got a lot of training. So there are certain areas that you can shadow in the hospital and then, of course, there are certain areas you cannot. Course there are certain areas you cannot, but you can always talk to those professionals as well who are in that position and try to get a day-to-day schedule of what they might be doing, even if you can't go see it in person.
Speaker 2:And the other thing about the career day is that we've tried to set it up so you can network with people, and we want you to literally walk up to somebody and say my name is Dominic and I'm interested in being an engineer, could you tell me a little bit about your company, or could I shadow you, or something like that. So be your own best advocate, don't be shy, just walk up. They love it. We try to recruit people from all around the city and the region who have some association with UT Tyler, like some of them are former students and things like that. But they're really eager to help students, so don't be shy about talking to them, you know, and that will be really good. Now I want to ask Michaela to talk a little bit to you, mary, because you said you could see yourself in some of your professors. Michaela started out thinking about being a teacher, like in elementary school probably, and now she's teaching college and I understand from you, dominic, she's not so bad at it.
Speaker 3:No, she's a great teacher.
Speaker 2:She's a great teacher. So when you made that shift, what made you think, well, maybe I might try to teach college instead of the younger kids? What has that turned out to be like for you, Michaela?
Speaker 5:I will say after watching my sister and my mom teach the primary education.
Speaker 2:So that's pre-K through sixth grade. I knew that was not what I wanted to do.
Speaker 5:Why? What made you think that I am really student-led, project-based, with the work that I like to give to my students? I want them to have peer review. I want them to talk together. I don't want to be the one giving them all of their information. I think it's really beneficial to get it from my perspective, but also from a peer's perspective. At the same time, and with younger students who don't quite know how to use a computer, they don't quite know what prompts to give to Google and other softwares that we would use, I can't quite give them the same autonomy or freedom. With a presentation or with a project they may talk with their group members, and those group members say, if they're in second grade they may not know exactly what they're talking about, right? So we want to give them that base knowledge before we start with the group style projects. And so I knew that I wanted to work with older students so that way I could continue that style.
Speaker 5:So I got my bachelor's degree in English education for 7th through 12th grade. I have that certification through the state of Texas. And then, while I was in my very last semester of that doing my student teaching full timetime, which was in a seventh grade classroom from 7 30 in the morning to 4 30 in the afternoon, every day, monday through Friday. I absolutely loved those kids, but I still thought there was more. I wanted to do with group projects and I knew at the college level I would be able to do that so much better and I knew from watching in my own classes that that was really where I wanted to take it. And so it made sense. Because we have such a great English master's program here that was like a stepping stone from the bachelor's program I was already in, it made sense for me to just continue on with that and move to the master's and then get that and hopefully teach at the college level with that.
Speaker 2:And how did you end up being a teacher, though? Because that's one thing to be a grad student, it's another thing to be a professor.
Speaker 5:Thankfully, ut Tyler does a great job of trying to match you up with internships, jobs where you can get out in that field and do what you are hoping to do.
Speaker 5:And so here, doing teaching through teacher's assistant positions and things like that, you are able to in our program, at least through the English Masters program teach a class under a senior mentor professor. So the way it works right now is I am a TA and I teach my class on my own. There's no other lecturer professor, anything like that in the room. But then before class or on another day throughout the week, I meet with my senior professor and we go over what happened in class, what we're going to do next time, what decisions we made for that class that either worked or did not work, and how can we change that for the next class to make it an optimal learning space for those students, depending on what they need, Because you can always try to plan or anticipate their needs, but sometimes it doesn't always work out. You don't foresee certain things happening and you have to change what you did. So we're in constant conversation, even though he's not in the class with me.
Speaker 2:Also, I'll just tell you this, dominic we don't let just everybody do this. We knew that she was going to be good at it and we watched her and we saw how she could do it. So, mary, that's something you can think about possibly doing For you. Dominic is looking for being a TA in a program too, so you can do that. Now I want to go back to. I remember some of the things you all said were sort of a surprise, and we've kind of talked about that already. Have you adapted to some of the things that you said last time that you thought, oh my Lord, it's so much work and how much time? You're getting a lot better at that now? Do you feel like you're sort of rolling along?
Speaker 3:I definitely feel a lot better about my time management skills and getting my work done. You know some of my classes. They have weekly quizzes and so what I try to do is on the weekends especially. I try to get them done for the week and then you know, the quizzes are done and so I just I mostly need to focus on the lectures and like taking notes and reviewing for the class.
Speaker 2:So it's written work that's prepared for you to get ready for the class. Yes, we have something kind of like that in my class called the CPA or the class preparation assignment. Is that working for you, mary? Tell me the truth. If you think they're stupid, let me know.
Speaker 4:No, I honestly like the CPAs, but I wish that I was better at not procrastinating doing them, because you're supposed to read whatever material you're assigned and then complete the CPA. And usually I like to procrastinate and so I read really early in the morning before class and then do my CPA, so I don't get to give my full effort on the CPAs. But no, I do enjoy and I like the whole concept of it.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I've found and this is sort of advice for all students is that you have to be fully engaged with your homework before you come to a class in college. You have to really thought about it for a while and you have to done a lot more than just getting the reading done. You know, because we're doing a lot harder work, and so those quizzes that your teachers are giving you and I'm sure that's exactly what they had in mind is to get you engaged so that when you show up you've already answered some of the hard questions. A lot of times I will have students just look at what they wrote on their class preparation assignment and just to clarify what they are is I give the students two chapters or four chapters to read and then I'll ask about four questions that guide them toward what I think is important to look at.
Speaker 2:You know characterization, what happened here between these two characters. That tells you more about what's really going on with them, or what major theme that we've talked about in the three weeks before is popping up here, and things like that. So it calls the student into a deeper level of engagement with the reading. Now I want to ask you about this? I ask everybody to read the plot summaries before they read the novels, and not everybody likes that idea. What did you think about that, mary, and do you remember why I told you to do it?
Speaker 4:Well, I thought it was a good idea because that's just naturally what I did Like in high school whenever we were assigned a book. I would go read the plot summaries, or I like to watch the videos, so it's like a visual representation of the plot. I did that naturally. So with those instructions it was like oh yeah, this is perfect. But you told us when we're initially reading it's not like, oh, we're trying to understand the book, we have sort of a basic understanding of what's going on, so then we can better see the main ideas that we're supposed to like gather. So I think it's a good see the main ideas that we're supposed to like gather. So I think it's a good. I like the plot summaries and like getting the summarizations before we actually start reading.
Speaker 2:You were nodding your head too. Michaela, Do you want to talk about that too?
Speaker 5:Sure, yeah. So I think kind of what Mary is saying is like you anticipate the key points that are in the CPAs but are also in the chapters, because you are prepared to look for them and you know what they're leading up to when you look at the plot summary or read the plot summary before you read the complete chapter. If you go through the chapter without knowing the full extent of where it's going to go, sometimes you can get lost in the little details or you may have gone through and you forgot what you read at the beginning because you've already started focusing on the end. But when you go through the plot summary, you know what the story is going to be about for that section. So now you can look for the smaller details.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of times students will look at me and they'll say, dr Ross, how did you see that in the poem or the book? Because I've read it about seven times. And what I'm trying to teach you how in literature is not to appreciate literature but to be able to think critically about whatever text comes your way. Teaching you how to do that in English can help you do that in history, can help you do that in reading the text of society that's out there in the world that you experience. And so if you have got several chances to read through it and get a sense of what's going on first off, then when you read it you know who the characters are ahead of time. You also know that it's heading towards something and you can see the foreshadowing, you can see the moves the writer is making. That is making that text work so well for you and it gives you an idea. You know when students say where'd you get that deep, hidden meaning? It's there. You just didn't know how to read for it and now you're seeing it.
Speaker 2:But you know, I actually got the idea from a student who kind of like you, mary, who told me I always read the book ahead of time. I've started adding audio books, and if there's a quality movie or like there's a BBC series on North and South, if you've been able to watch that, it's well done enough that I don't mind students seeing that along with reading it. Now I also, just so you'll know, dominic, I give them quizzes that are over the book, and if they just read the plot summary they can't pass the quiz. So don't worry, we don't give that away. So you think you're kind of rolling along. How about you, mary? Because I remember last time I was really surprised at how anxious you seemed. You don't seem as anxious as you were five weeks ago, is that right?
Speaker 4:I think I'm doing a better job of hiding it.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 4:I think I hadn't really gotten into like how college classes were. It was like the very introduction. It was like, oh you know, I understand you're a first year student and we're like going to try to ease you into it. But now that I'm actually like in college and everything like that, I'm seeing that I'm finding my own ways to do my assignments so I'm not as anxious anymore.
Speaker 4:But I still do have a hard time speaking up in class. I do have a hard time with criticism and I'm comparing myself. I'm trying to compare myself to others and especially with my competitiveness with grades. It's really hard because in college you don't know how other kids are doing in a class. So it's kind of hard to compare. And for me I don't think I'm successful in certain assignments or certain classes unless I compare myself to others, which is not a good thing to do, I know, or like even a good way to think. I'm kind of struggling with that. But academic-wide, like the assignments and stuff, I feel like I'm getting it. But it's just the mental struggle of comparing and everything like that.
Speaker 2:Have you ever heard the phrase comparison is the thief of joy? But you know it's kind of something that's baked into education. You know you're always comparing yourself and people talk about the GPA. The truth is is that professors don't worry nearly as much about the GPA. What we're worried about is are you moving upward as you go along? And I don't know about all the other teachers I can't speak about all of them but I try to grade in a way that shows that if you've achieved what I want you to achieve at the end of the semester, that if you've achieved what I want you to achieve at the end of the semester, that that is more reflective of what your skill is than if you floundered around a little bit at the beginning. You do want to keep track of how others are doing because you can learn from your classmates. But worrying about whether or not you got a 97 and they got a 98 or whatever is not that productive, is it? But the fact that you recognize that about is it? Yeah, but you know, the fact that you recognize that about yourself is a good thing.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things I talk about in class is Chickering and Reiser's seven vectors of college development. Chickering and Reiser are two researchers, psychologists and scholars of learning who have looked to see the seven things that all college students have to go through to get finished, and the first one, of course, is competency, and that's what you think you're here for. But after competency, there are things like interpersonal relations and developing autonomy, and learning to have a value system, and learning to control your emotions, but also to recognize your emotions, and then, toward the end, it's coming down to having a sense of your personal integrity. But self-understanding is a big part of that time and self-expression is part of it, but also learning how to be in a group but not dominate it, but not be hiding around in the corners, lurking around, doing nothing. So it sounds like that's what's happening to you already, mary, and I'm really excited to hear that. How are you coming along on this? Tickering vectors of development? Do you have any idea there, dominic? Are you thinking about any of those?
Speaker 3:I mean, I haven't thought much about it.
Speaker 2:Well, you just told me, though you just told us that you came to the realization that you didn't want to spend about 12 years in school. So what did that?
Speaker 3:teach you about yourself. That taught me for a long time, but I just I found out that I just didn't want to be in the medical field. The thing about it was like I've heard about how sometimes, you know, it can be a fairly toxic environment to work in and you know the hours can be pretty aggressive sometimes as well, you know not saying other jobs can't be, but especially in the medical field. And so that made me realize that you know, I don't know if this is the path for me, and so I thought about it and I thought about what I enjoyed and what I like, and I really like technology, and so that's why I was like, you know, I really want to work with technology, like that would be great for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and see what that tells me is you're doing exactly what Chickering Rides to want you to do, which is thinking about you know, what are your strengths, what are your talents. That's an important set of decisions, and the fact that you've moved that far so quickly is really a great sign to me. And so now just keep on thinking about those things. But you know, we do have a writing with technology program in the English department, don't we?
Speaker 5:Yes, we do. That's one of the minors under the Literature and Languages department. So yeah, I can give you some information about that.
Speaker 2:And even if you end up being a full STEM guy, a course like that could be very useful too. There's a lot of interdisciplinary things that are happening along the way. So, now that you're eight weeks in, one of the things I had my students do is a self-assessment of how they thought they were doing at the beginning, the first week, mary, and then in the seventh week, which you turned in last week, do you remember which ones you feel like you made the most progress on? And this is, by the way, 27 skills? I should get my list out and read them to you. In fact, I'll give you a copy of it later on, dominic. But yes, ma'am.
Speaker 4:I don't remember the specific topics that I said I improved on, but I know for me, I think one of them I'm guessing here but I think one of them was like being connected with the topics you're learning about and everything. Yes, engagement, yes, and I think I've seen a big improvement on myself on that, because in high school I would just read the books or like I'd learn about science and I would just like try to memorize everything and make sure I got a good grade on the test so I could have good grades. But now, with the comparing factor and, like me, not knowing what other people really are getting on assignments, I think I'm able to engage myself more with the content that I'm like supposed to be learning and I like being able to identify author's purpose and everything like that, because I like that, not because, oh, I know that's going to be on the test. So I think that was one of the major improvements I had.
Speaker 2:But what that is, dominic, is. I talk to my students a lot and I don't know if you've done this too in his class, but metacognition You've heard me say that word before thinking about your thinking, which usually in your high school you're so busy getting your grades done and getting your homework done and then you know getting off to do whatever you have to do after school that you don't really think about what you're learning or how you're learning. And one of the best things students can do is, you know, I always say take notes and study your notes, read your notes. A lot of students will come to class. They don't take notes. Do you take notes?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I take notes.
Speaker 2:Thank God. I still have to say would you please get your notes out? And it's like I'm saying that to a freshman in college. I want to scream, but but you know they have the bad habits from high school. What's the worst habit you have from high school that you want to tell your high school friends to knock off?
Speaker 3:I mean, my worst habit was probably not really studying, mostly because, like I didn't need to, you know I could pass with a high enough grade. But you know here, whenever I got here, I was like wow, this is a lot to learn in like what feels like a very short amount of time. So I'd start working on studying, like as soon as possible.
Speaker 2:Now, Mary, I'm not sure that would be the same bad habit for you, but what would it be for you?
Speaker 4:Definitely I would advise people not to be so worried about being competitive While I might have a different perspective on that now in college, because I'm not like in medical school or I'm not trying to be a lawyer, so grades really aren't that important Most of my motivation for learning things came from oh, I have to be better than that person, or oh, I have to make sure I have the highest GPA so I can graduate this. I definitely would advise people to leave that mindset as soon as you walk across that stage, because that's when your education becomes more personal when you leave like if you're doing better than other people behind.
Speaker 2:Good attitude, although I will say Mary did get into our Honors College and she was valedictorian, so it had some very proud moments to it. But you can see that it just gets you past a certain point, you know. So now that you're going into the eighth week, you've got only six more weeks until the semester's over. How's that feel, mary?
Speaker 4:I feel like it feels more exciting because, especially now, since I'm having to go to academic advising appointments, getting ready for registration, I feel like I have a better control this time around, especially with, like, looking into the next classes I'm going to take, rather than I did in April of my senior year, when I really didn't know what I was going to do, just trying to get out of high school. So it's more exciting, I think.
Speaker 2:Same thing for you, Dominic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's pretty exciting to know like almost a full semester through this, like it honestly caught me by surprise. But yeah, I am excited because you know I'm getting advised at a good time, unlike coming into this semester. I don't know if you remember, but I got advised fairly late.
Speaker 2:Yes, you did. I remember you talked about that, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so you know, just knowing what I want to do and knowing that I'm going to have pretty good choices for classes, you know it has me excited for it.
Speaker 2:You know, I think, if I recall, one of the things we talked about last time was that you didn't really know how important advising was. You just kind of went, oh, I'm just going to go to college, and what you realize is that there's all these different kinds of requirements, hoops you have to hop through, there's a lot of administrivia. As we say that, as much as we hate it, it's part of the state system and you've got to do it. And so, knowing, oh, there's a reason to do that and get to your advising appointment early Remember, get to them early so that the good classes won't be filled up you got to do that, right? What other kind of pieces of advice do you want to pass along to the friends back in high school? Or maybe to that friend down the hall who's not doing as well in school as you are?
Speaker 3:Take advantage of the resources you have. Take advantage of the free time you have, of the resources you have. Take advantage of the free time you have. My biggest resource is having the library. You know having a dedicated space to just go do work in. You know whether you're like in the open floor or if you need like a private area, you know you can go into the personal study rooms. Take advantage of that. I've had to use the writing center before and you know they help with papers. They help you get you on like the track and kind of get your ideas and understand what you need. They don't edit for you. They helped me and my group. We went and they helped us like get our ideas on the right track. We were writing a paper it was me and one of my group members and we were trying to like figure out how we want to get our ideas together and how to structure them and the person there she was able to help us really get it laid out, like how she recommends to do it and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:What about librarians? Have you used librarians much yet?
Speaker 3:I haven't.
Speaker 2:I think Mary has Want to tell them about librarians.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So librarians are much more than what you would ever expect before you get to college. They're the biggest brainiacs on the whole entire planet. I had to schedule an appointment with my specific librarian because there's different librarians for each major and everything like that. So for my literature and language librarian she was able to sit me down and she showed me this. So many like technological, like websites that can help organize my sources, one being SciWheel. She showed me that that's like the best thing I've ever seen in my life. You're able to like organize all your big beefy academic articles and everything like that and organize it and write notes and cite it, and it's the best thing ever. But meeting with her, she's able to not only like sit there and tell me like oh, look at this article for this certain paper, or whatever, she helps you like brainstorm.
Speaker 2:Why don't you tell folks what your project was, so people can make it more concrete?
Speaker 4:My project was I had to create a PowerPoint for background information into our book North and South, written by Elizabeth Gaskell. But my topic was family roles. So I went up to her and I said, okay, I have this project about family roles. I need sources to cite, like I kind of told her the main idea of the project and she was able to sit me down and say well, I think you should structure it like this and here are some good sources and sites that you can go check out and read more about the importance of the father in the Victorian England time period. But yeah, they're like the smartest people on the planet.
Speaker 2:They really are, and if you haven't used them yet, Dominic, be aware that they're there and they are dying to help you. You know a lot of colleges don't have research librarians that are as wonderful as ours and a lot of professors don't think to use them, but they're sitting there waiting, so be sure you call on them. Yeah, Vandy Dubry, she actually she and I planned that project together so that we know exactly how to direct you and we have things like that, so you should be really happy to know that news. Dominic. Last little things, anything else you want to tell us? I know that you were very nervous about coming here when I first invited you and when I asked you to come back, you said you were happy to do it. You want to tell us why?
Speaker 4:I feel like this is an opportunity for me to validate my first year college experience, because when everyone asks about college, it's like oh, how are you doing? The first instinct is to be like I'm doing good, no one needs to help me, I'm literally having the best time ever. But in reality, a lot of people are struggling. It's a normal thing to struggle. So I feel like this being able to talk with another first year student and talking with mentors like you guys it's so validating to like see, it's okay to struggle and it's okay to experience this big experience for the first time in your life.
Speaker 2:I about you, Dominic. You didn't mind coming back either, huh.
Speaker 3:No, I didn't. I've been looking for ways to connect with people on campus and, you know, get to know them more personally, and I think this has been like a great way to connect with another first year, connect with my professor, connect with you, just be able to connect with everybody, and it's been really nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in fact that's one of the things that a lot of times students struggle with is connecting at first, you know, especially when you're far from home. So we're going to probably invite you back to hear how you're doing. It may end up being a series. We may just have to follow them all the way till graduation. I don't know so well. That was pretty interesting. I enjoyed that. I guess that's a wrap, ashley.
Speaker 6:Yes, ma'am, this has been the Ask Dr Ross podcast. Thank you so much for listening in with us today, and if you have questions about college life or any of the topics that we were talking about today, please send us your questions to adrquestions at gmailcom. We'd love to hear from you. In the meanwhile, we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you very much. This is Ashley Wortley signing off. Bye-bye.
