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
What Can I Expect From Sophomore Year? Pt. 3
We all know freshman year is a big turning point. There's orientations, welcome celebrations, loads of "firsts" to experience - but with three more years of college, the changes and growth have only begun.
What happens next?
This week, Dr. Ross and student producer Ashley Worley reconvene with two students who appeared on the podcast in their first week of freshman year: Mary Mooney and Dominick Robinette. Now approaching their sophomore year, they discuss the variety of developmental shifts and struggles they've encountered, like managing anxiety, building connections on campus, and navigating AI use in homework. Through it all, they offer insights on how this often-overlooked middle year can be just as pivotal for growth as the first.
Have more questions about surviving and thriving in sophomore year? Email us at ADRquestions@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from 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:Here we are again with the famous Mary Mooney and Dominic Robinette, two students that, when we first started talking to them, were brand new first-year students at UT Tyler and we thought it'd be a lot of fun to follow their career all the way through their time till graduation. So we visited the first couple weeks of class and Mary was very nervous about making any kind of mistakes and speaking up. Dominic was thinking about changing his major and was kind of really happy to be away from the bleak geography, shall we say, of Midland, texas. And things had changed by the time we met with you a little bit later on, dominic. Your big change was what a change of major, wasn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a change of major Switched from biology pre-med to electrical engineering.
Speaker 2:And how's that going for you?
Speaker 3:It's been good so far, honestly, just lots of fun. I've enjoyed it a lot more just because you know I'm more of a numbers slash math person and you know that's really what engineering is just numbers, solving problems and figuring out math.
Speaker 2:So the fun of solving problems, huh, I think that's a wonderful thing for people out there to hear that solving problems is actually kind of a fun process, isn't it? Yeah, All right Now, Mary. You started as an English major and I think you're still an English major. We haven't run you off yet.
Speaker 4:No, no, y'all have kept me here. In fact, I'm so sure of my major. It's definitely for me.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so good to hear what made it feel like you were so sure about it.
Speaker 4:Well, I feel like all the classes I took, I just felt like all the stuff like interest me. It wasn't like work, it didn't feel like schoolwork, even though like I was scared to mess up and like I wanted to like do the best I could. It was like fun in the process too.
Speaker 2:So both of you are having fun, and to me, that's one of the great things about college is that it is a lot of fun, and it's not just fun outside of the classroom, it's actually fun in the classroom, and I'd like you to talk a little bit more about that, mary, when you say it's fun, would you think about the folks out there that are maybe nervous about getting to college and could you tell them a little bit more about why it's?
Speaker 4:fun. I think the most fun part for me is like being able to like sit in a college classroom, which is like super intimidating and like you feel like you're an adult, but like the stuff that you're learning you get it automatically if you choose the right major. So, for example, like one of my classes that I took second semester was a modern literature class and first going into the class it was upper senior level division class, so I was super scared. I was like I'm doing the wrong thing. But when I got in there and I started doing the work, it was like I wanted to keep on going. Like, even though the class was an hour and 20 minutes, it was like I couldn't get enough of it, like I wanted to keep going back when it clicks.
Speaker 2:That, I feel like, is the fun part, and also, you're in a classroom with other majors, right, and this is one of the great things about moving forward. After a certain year or two, you start getting into your major, and then you're not just taking a history class here, a math class here, a political science class here. You're taking lots and lots and lots of the same courses. So now, besides classrooms, things have been changing too for you. Now, mary, do you have a job? What are you doing here on campus this summer? Did you drive all the way in from Jacksonville just for us? I drove all the way in from Jacksonville. Oh my gosh. Well, we've got to take her out for lunch or something.
Speaker 4:No, no, no. I mean, I come to Tyler all the time anyway. Tyler is like the place to be from Jacksonville, so it was no trouble. But I do have a job in Jacksonville anyway, so that's kind of what keeps me busy there, and then when I want to have fun I come to Tyler. So what are you doing for a job in Jacksonville? I'm a cashier at this little store that. I've been a cashier since like junior year of high school. They just like let me come back. I'm a temporary employee and recently, this summer, they promoted me to office clerk. So now I'm not just a little cashier, I'm doing a lot more, bigger things, I guess. And what kind of store is it? It's a Berkshire Brothers, so it's just a little convenient grocery store type thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, and for those folks who don't know this area, the Brookshire brothers are very famous family in the Tyler and East Texas area. In fact, we have a building named after them Brookshire Hall, I think that's called. But, dominic, you now have a pretty interesting job here. You were telling us about it before we started, so speak away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my first campus job was actually working in the University Center as part of the operations team, really just kind of helping with event setup, teardown and management. Every now and then we would jump in and actually help run the events that happened all throughout the University Center. But for the summer I actually got recommended by my boss to be an orientation leader, and so that is why I'm actually able to be here this summer, because they do provide housing and it's a super fun job honestly. Also, as my job in the University Center, I'm going to get promoted in the fall to building manager, so I'm pretty excited about that. I'll be, you know, still working with the operations team, but just a little bit more on the business side, really not as much helping out with setting up the events, but more just making sure things in the university center are just running smoothly.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about what orientation is and what you do as an orientation leader.
Speaker 3:For New Patriot Orientation. It's two days, it's a Thursday and a Friday.
Speaker 2:And these are all incoming first year students or transfer to.
Speaker 3:We do transfer orientation separately, so on Thursdays it's typically a little bit more laid back, but it's still lots of business being done, Like we will get into small groups, get to know the students real well, kind of introduce them to campus and just what the UT Tyler kind of family is, Because most people on campus I would say are very welcoming and you just need to have a conversation with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard folks say that they went to different campuses and they always felt as though this was a place where they kind of wanted to be, was friendly, and I remember my own experience with that. Ashley, did you travel a lot of campuses or did you come straight here?
Speaker 5:I pretty much came straight here because here was where the scholarship was for me, and also your sister was already here too, so you knew the routine. Yeah, but I think mainly where I got introduced to like the campus culture like Dominic was talking about was when I was working as a tour guide. It's a big deal for the tour guides. They want you to get people introduced to campus and excited and you know what the customs are and the fun little like campus legends, like the turtle and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because students, when they first get here, were you pretty intimidated, Mary.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely. I mean orientation alone. It was just like so many people and like, personally, for me I don't like the whole camp, like hey, let's come have fun, learn people, and I tend to stray away from that, so it was definitely intimidating. But I mean orientation showed me not only like all the people that I was going to be around, but also what the campus has to offer. I loved just exploring, like all the buildings and seeing all like the educational resources we have here. That was really what I loved about orientation.
Speaker 2:Now the orientation part. Do they load you up into groups by the major or do they let you kind of mix and mingle?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they usually separate them out into schools. We also offer group advising during orientation. So towards the end, as we're kind of gearing up, everyone's been kind of sectioned into their own groups like the whole orientation, but we will start taking them to get actually advised and most of them typically do have a major picked.
Speaker 2:Do those folks that you meet that very first orientation? Have they continued to be the people that you know and love throughout?
Speaker 4:the years. I actually know because I went to Swoop Camp so I had a roommate and my roommate. We lived on the same floor and we saw each other, would say hi and everything like that. But yeah, I definitely know a lot of the people that I met at Swoop Camp.
Speaker 2:So it helps to kind of take that anxiety about not knowing anybody off the table, doesn't it? Yeah? Yeah, now Ashley also has a job on campus. Would you like to tell the audience what you do?
Speaker 5:Well, this is my campus job. It started as volunteer and now I've been very fortunate to get it as like a part-time position, but basically I get to do all of the production aspects. So I'm messing with these buttons here and running the board, producing the episodes part-time position, but basically I get to do all of the production aspects. So messing with these buttons here and running the board, producing the episodes and sending them out in their final product form, but also a lot of the organization elements, like I send you all the emails and getting people to come to the studio. Overall, I think personally I have the best job on campus. Don't tell anybody, but I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Well, I wanted to bring this up. First of all, 19 and a half hours, right, is all you can work when you do a campus job. We don't want you to have a 40-hour-a-week job Now. We have a lot of students who do that and those are the ones who I wring my hands over at night when they get really stressed out. But if you can do a part-time job like this and I did one when I was in college as well it's a really good option. It takes off some of the anxiety of the financial drain that college always is, but it also gives you some professional experience.
Speaker 2:I wanted to talk to you all about something that Mary knows I've talked about in class before, which are the seven vectors of college student development. What this is? Chickering and Reiser are two scholars who study the psychology of being a college student, and they talked about the seven vectors of your development. You know, a lot of times people think by the time you get to college, man, you've done it. But we also know that your brain didn't even fully develop until you're 25.
Speaker 2:And there are all these skills that are changing. I mean, I just noticed the way you two walked into the room just now is so different from the way you walked in a year ago. You're taller, you're tanner, you've got a mustache, you've got longer hair, but you also have a kind of confidence that you're getting to know this place and you kind of own it. And so that very first vector is the one we call developing competence, and that's developing intellectual, physical and manual skills for whatever it is that you're trying to study, like engineering or English or mass comm. But guess what the next one is after that? It's called managing emotions. And then the next one, which is sort of related to that, is moving through autonomy toward interdependence. Start by managing emotions. I remember Mary was very nervous, and you're not so nervous anymore, are you? Are you a lot better?
Speaker 4:at that. I think so. I remember Mary was very nervous and you're not so nervous anymore, are you? Are you a lot better at that? I think so. I'm definitely more confident.
Speaker 4:I'm not as nervous in the classroom, but throughout freshman year I did struggle with just anxiety as a whole. I had anxiety before, you know. I came here and it definitely did not get better. I just found other ways to manifest my anxiety. So when I came back home it was evident to my mom that was like okay, like we have to look into this because you're stressing out too much. When you're by yourself and you have all this college work that you have to look at, it's really hard to like separate, like okay, I need to focus on college, okay, I need to focus on myself. You tend to forget about yourself and that's what I did. I let my anxiety take over. I let it control and intertwine with how I work, with my college life. So, definitely, being away from college, taking a break in the summer. I'm working on that and I'm working on managing my emotions and hopefully it will be better. My sophomore year.
Speaker 2:Well and you know, mary, you're not unlike a lot of young people who are very driven to do very, very well. You are valedictorian. You want to stay being a valedictorian type. I know from being your professor that you have very high standards for yourself, and these are all great things to have, but college can be stressful. Now, did either of you have any kind of issues with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, college was pretty stressful, you know just for me it was really the distance and just knowing nobody. I mean Midland Texas is like another country, it's really far away, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's far, but the biggest thing that's honestly helped me with everything like that is getting more involved in campus. So I've joined a couple of organizations on campus and just getting to know people through that and just continually meeting people has just really helped me out.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think sometimes, if you'll talk about what you're anxious about, a lot of times, someone can say I had that too, it's okay, or yeah, that's a good reason to be anxious. Have you talked to Professor so-and-so? Or have you talked to the RA? A lot of times there are folks like that. It's real low stakes. It's not like you know, going in for a serious appointment with a doctor or anything, it's just talking to somebody. And I know that what I saw happening to you was that you were getting better. You don't always notice it when you get better, do you? What about you, ashley?
Speaker 5:Well, I will say I found out I have kind of an interesting way of dealing with feelings is that I don't really get anxious or whatever in the moment. It like hits like probably an hour or two hours after, and that's something I figured out kind of quickly when I got to college and it's useful in one way and not so useful in other ways. College, and it's useful in one way and not so useful in other ways. So being able to deal with things in the moment is something that having jobs on campus and talking to professors and all of those things that are par for the course when you come to college that's something that has been a lot more frequent and that I've been developing.
Speaker 2:I'm actually just like you, I can look real cool, calm and collected. Somebody will come at me and I'm just you know. Actually, just like you, I can look real cool, calm and collected. Somebody will come at me and I'm just you know, that's all right, I can handle this, no problem. And then later on it's just doing and doing and doing, and you're right that it's. Learning to stay in the moment is important. The other thing is that Ashley and I have had some crises in the work and my sense is that it's been good training for you.
Speaker 5:Oh, absolutely, and every job is going to be like that too, you know. So it's better to have work while you're in college, so that you're getting both ends of those learning. College is good for the interpersonal skills anyway, but work especially.
Speaker 2:And the thing that's good too about it and it sounds like you get this too at Brookshire's is that it's sort of a family thing. Right, you guys are a family, and so the folks that are supervising you maybe your professors or maybe employees at the campus so we all have a lot of interest and you're doing well, and so that's another reason why a campus job is a great deal. Now the other three things that I really really want to talk about is establishing identity, developing purpose and developing integrity, and those take years to develop, you know, but identity it sounds like, mary, you just said you're more like your true self. Now, is that right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think so, being in college during the beginning, I strayed away from people and I isolated myself and I think by doing that I was able to prioritize what I like, so my interest, and I was able to let that become my personality and allow myself to let other people know hey, I like this stuff and if you don't like it too bad, I'm a serious English major, exactly, and I'm okay to nerd out about it and through that I feel like I found my identity, which, of course, it's not completely discovered. I have a lot more growing to do but through that I'm able to attract people that will better me and have the same interests as me, and it's all good.
Speaker 2:How about? You has your identity. Is it getting more focused for you, dominic?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I was really closed off to most people and I usually am Whenever I first get to know them. I'm just kind of nervous to be myself, and I usually am whenever I first get to know them. Yeah, I'm just kind of nervous to be myself. The first organization I actually started going to was Boathouse. It's an on-campus organization and going to that, just meeting countless people, I've actually met the people that I'm gonna be moving into an apartment with at Boathouse. So going to that has allowed me to open up more. And I also joined a fraternity. I joined the Kappa Sigma. Hanging around people like that and like-minded individuals has just opened me up to where, if I'm hanging around anybody, I'm myself. Now I'm not anywhere near as closed off as I used to be.
Speaker 2:I think that's a really interesting thing. Now, what is Boathouse?
Speaker 3:Boathouse, it's a Christian student organization. Boathouse, it's a Christian student organization and we go out on Lake Tyler on Tuesdays and it is from like 6 to 10 pm. We get a dinner, just kind of talk and hang out for about an hour and then there is a worship service and a sermon given as well.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's important for students to recognize that there is a spiritual element to the growth you're going through. There is a spiritual element to the growth you're going through and I know there is for me as an adult in my profession is definitely has aspects to it and I'm really pleased that universities take time and give space to that kind of opportunity. Ashley, are you doing anything along those lines? Is your identity changing because of the things that you've been involved in? Anything along those lines?
Speaker 5:Is your identity changing because of the things that you've been involved in. If it has, I haven't noticed it's a short version. I kind of came into college feeling pretty solid about who I was. I was very fortunate to have, you know, parents who spent basically my entire childhood trying to give building blocks, so that by the time I was 18 or ready to go to college, like we were not done growing but had a great foundation. And that's because you were homeschooled. Well, probably yeah.
Speaker 2:Now you went to public high school and you went to public high school, mary. So I do think that there's a big difference between learning who you are when you're working with your family that closely. Now some people their families are driving crazy, and it's real good to be in a public school. And I will say this that my experience with homeschool students has been generally that you are pretty self-aware, and you certainly have been that way, and we've been lucky enough to be able to find a work for you that fits too with what I think your professional identity. Lucky enough to be able to find work for you that fits too with what I think your professional identity is going to be one day. So that's been pretty handy for you. Developing purpose when you hear that phrase, what does that make you think, mary?
Speaker 4:well, with the context of college, the only thing I can think of is career. What's the end goal? How are you going to make money? That type of purpose and you have that figured out already, don't you?
Speaker 2:I think I have a pretty good idea. Yeah, yeah, and I hope it's the same thing you said last time we talked college professor, english college professor I think you really are well suited to that. You have the kind of motivation and the intellect to do it. But also you are pretty good at focusing and you know ruling out some of the stuff that's interfering with that serious research stuff that we have to do. So I think it'll be really interesting to watch you develop that research stuff that we have to do. So I think it'll be really interesting to watch you develop that. The trick for you, I think, is going to be deciding what part of English studies you want to do, because it's a huge field. Are you going to do American? Are you going to do world? Are you going to do British? So that'll be a piece of what you do. And I guess, moving from medicine to electrical engineering, you've got purpose, starting to get a little more focus for you too.
Speaker 3:electrical engineering you've got purpose starting to get a little more focus for you too, huh yeah. So I don't exactly know what part of electrical engineering I want to be in, you know, because that in and itself is a very broad field. There's like power grids you could work on cars almost anything that you can think of essentially needs an electrical engineer, because almost everything we have now has electronics in it. It's a broad category, but it's narrow enough that I think like I have a goal of what I'm working towards Just getting to work with leading technology. Honestly, that's something that I get super excited about is hearing about new technologies, and the fact that I could be on the edge of guiding people to new technology like that. It gets me super excited.
Speaker 2:That's fun, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And also, you know, I mentioned before the career conference. When that comes around in, usually October, there will be electrical engineers invited. But I know that all of our departments are trying really hard these days to steer students toward, if not an internship, then opportunity to communicate with and talk to, and sometimes even follow, professionals in the field. What about you, ashley Purpose?
Speaker 5:I had kind of a similar experience to what Dominic was talking about, where you come into your major and it feels specified, but it's actually rather broad when you look at the actual career applications of it.
Speaker 2:And both of you are in fields that are changing all the time.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I was fortunate to have a lot of the basics done in high school. So I came in and got right to the coursework for Mass Comm and I found out very quickly a lot of these things about myself. I was like, ok, news is not going to work for me. I cannot work in news, and it was because of the resources like the Career Success Conference and the core classes we had that were, you know, news emphasis and mass comm just realizing that my personality and the things that I value and find gratifying in doing work are not always the most prominent in a particular field or subset of a field. But what I realized became important to me was that I really like project-oriented work and work that helps somebody. Whatever the project is, it's not about the person who's making it as much as it is who it's for. So audience-oriented work. And the other thing that's held up is that I still love entertainment. I love podcasts, I love movies, I love fiction books.
Speaker 2:What's wonderful to hear. All three of you seem to have found something you enjoy studying, and that's the key. The thing that always makes me the saddest is when I've got a first year or sophomore student who's studying nursing because they thought they wanted to be a nurse and now, oh my goodness, I don't like being around sick people, or, oh, I really hate anatomy, or I just don't want to do the math, and then they feel stuck. And what I'm happy to see is that in your case, dominic, you saw pretty quickly and you shifted.
Speaker 2:In your case, ashley, you're kind of in the right field, but you're not sure which part of that field, and you're working on that the last question, or the last competency on the list, and it's not going to be the last thing you do. But it has to do with integrity, and I think integrity is partly being true to yourself. But one of the things I was wondering is now, everybody knows that in high school, lots of kids cheat and in college guess what A few people cheat. Here too. I've noticed, for example, with the advent of AI, that I can get an AI answer to a prompt on a homework assignment or a partially AI written essay. It's very, very tempting when you see other folks messing around, and I was wondering if you have had to confront any of those circumstances yet, or if you had some thoughts and feelings about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think AI. There's two sides to it, honestly. One, it is one of the greatest tools you could ever use. I used it to help me study for chemistry and I passed that class with, I believe, a 100. It's one of those things where you can use it and it'll help you understand everything so much better.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, it's so easy to be like, man, I really don't know what this problem is. It'll just spit the answer out and you can be like, oh, I really don't know what this problem is. It'll just spit the answer out and you can be like, oh, I'm learning it. And then suddenly you get to that exam. Or, if it's an online class, if certain people start using it, you may not even notice that, like suddenly you didn't know what you did that entire class. Ai literally took that class for you, and so I think those are the two like main sides to AI and it just comes with, I guess, probably just teaching people that this is a powerful tool, but if you use it the wrong way, you're not helping yourself in any way. You're just setting yourself up for failure.
Speaker 2:How are you going to pass the exam if AI took the course for you? How are you going to show up and know the stuff?
Speaker 4:I have a strong stance on AI, so in high school I never touched it. I was scared of it, even though I saw my peers use it and I saw that without me using ChatGPT specifically, my work stood out and I was able to excel in certain classes and it gave me a confidence in my academic ability and it gave me agency in my work me a confidence in my academic ability and it gave me agency in my work. So when I came here, most of my classes I never took tests. They were all essays, all written things, and knowing from high school that my work would stand out if I didn't use it, I would find myself getting fatigued when I would work. I couldn't think of things and I used ChatGBT just as a brainstorming assistant and it helped me so much. I would see how it would think and then I'd saw how my brain would think differing opinions and then a brand new idea would be created. So, similar to what Dominic was saying. It really depends on who uses it and how you use it.
Speaker 3:I'd like to add on to AI in writing. Whenever I took English 1301, that was a big thing that that class really was focusing on.
Speaker 2:Oh, and that was with Michaela Murphy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that whole class really was almost learning how to use AI in writing the proper way and she even gave us like examples. She was like go ahead, have AI write this paper and see how bad it is, honestly, because for the level that college writing needs to be, ai just can't do it. It can't follow simple instructions most of the time, knowing how to use it at the same time, like she taught us how to use it a lot and I really do appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Ashley, you want to add to this conversation?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I definitely agree with what both of y'all are saying. My background, you know coming to the AI and then cheating with AI and all that sort of thing was kind of different because I had a toaster of a laptop growing up, like I didn't have the technological tools to cheat. Most of my homework was paper, pretty much all of it. So when I came into college, first of all, don't join the group me's, don't join the the group me's, don't join the class group me's. It's a trap.
Speaker 5:But with using AI, I had been like Mary was doing and just staying away from it because I frankly just had never bothered with it before. And I came into a class that I just finished and we had this really intensive research project at the end of it where she let us pick what project we were going to do, what topic we were going to research, so long as it was related to one of the texts we'd been engaging. And I was like, well, I wonder if there's a neuroscience backing for whatever this media theorist was saying. And I was like maybe I could do that for my project. She was like, maybe you could do that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that was a mistake, I know nothing about the brain and I realized very quickly like trying to break down these studies to where I could understand them was like way a bigger task than I could handle and what I realized is that AI is great for comprehension, like y'all were talking about. So I could give it these studies and the specific sections where it was like 99% jargon, I could be like explain it to me. Like I was dumb, like I knew what none of this meant, and it could do it and I was able to finish that project. I feel like I have a way better understanding of the brain now and was able to actually develop like my own stance on the project and overall it was just a fantastic tool. But then I also understand the temptation to cheat with it, because when you're up at like 4.15 am trying to troubleshoot with your little chat GPT like what is this person actually saying in this study?
Speaker 2:And it offers oh, I know, Would you like me to write this for you? That makes me crazy when I see that.
Speaker 5:You know it's just trying to offer what the next logical step would be to give more assistance, like is there anything else you need from me? It's just part of the way it works, but it is so tempting, you know, when you've been up that long, when you're working that hard, when your brain's tired and it keeps offering, every single time it goes. Would you like me to write a paragraph? Would it goes? Would you like me to write a paragraph? Would you like me to write a little paragraph? What I noticed is when I kept saying no, it would make the request smaller. It's like would you like me to write it as a paper for you? Would you like me to write a paragraph for you? Would you like me to write a sentence for you?
Speaker 2:Please let me help you cheat. I know the other thing. It's a great study tool if it's constructed properly. And here's what I learned how to do. A colleague of mine who has spent three years investigating how to use it, created a protocol for an AI teaching assistant. I can load in all my own knowledge base, the stuff I teach, the texts I teach the directions I give my policy statement, my research project assignments, all that sort of stuff. That's a knowledge base, and also my policy statement with what to do and when to do it and stuff like that. And it created a TA that was so good that the students were just raving about it. Very first thing that we did to test it was. He said, what do you have to do to make an A in Dr Ross's English class? And it read my policy statement just to a T. Well, she really likes class participation. You better be sure you do your class preparation assignment ahead of time, but it's okay if you're a little bit late, da-da-da-da. And when my colleague who gave me the template for this, he sold it to me by saying Catherine, I have tested this with live teaching assistants and the bot is better. Whoa, have tested this with live teaching assistants and the bot is better, whoa. So that was very interesting to me.
Speaker 2:However, I'll give you a perfect example. I'm reading this my new favorite novelist, augusta Webster Ward, and I knew there was a chapter there that I wanted to reread and I asked it where it was. Chapter 16, and here's the quotation. I went to chapter 16, it was nowhere near that. It had just made it up. Another thing that's funny is that sometimes it will give you the names of articles that don't exist, and so you have to be very, very, very careful. But it's a good tool for a lot of basic stuff. So I don't want anybody to think that AI is evil or cheating, unless you use a cheat, and we're all going to be tempted to do that Now. Tricky stuff, you know, everything you put in there is becoming public information. You're teaching the bots, if you will. I think it's a tool like a calculator, and I'm glad that you all understand that there are limits to using it. What's your best advice to a brand new first-year student, mary?
Speaker 4:I mean, I think throughout this whole series, my advice has stayed the same, because it's something I tell myself constantly and it's okay to struggle, it's okay to find college is hard, especially coming from someone who all throughout their academic life, everything's been somewhat easy. I've been able to excel, I've been able to do everything.
Speaker 2:And you are a perfectionist.
Speaker 4:Definitely, to say the least, yes. So when you come to college, purposefully it's designed to make you mess up, it's designed to make you learn things through struggle. So when you tell yourself, ok, struggle is normal, I have to get over it, I have to know how to move on with it, everything becomes so much easier and you allow yourself to learn so much more.
Speaker 2:So definitely my advice would say make struggle a normal thing and be comfortable with it. I don't think we sit back and think, oh, how can I make Mary be really miserable and scared and nervous about herself? But you're right that when you're doing hard work, it is a struggle. If it weren't, it wouldn't be worth doing. You actually almost always learn more from making the mistakes than you do from being perfect, so that's a really healthy thing. Be okay with not being the perfect person in the class. There are always going to be smarter people around. What about you, dominic? You've probably been thinking about this a lot because of your getting trained for this program.
Speaker 3:I would say have fun College. It's one of the last times that you're going to be able to just have random things happen. You know, like I've taken just random trips that we planned the day of, and it's lots of fun and as long as you just be yourself and enjoy it like it'll be worth it. But you should always work harder than how much fun you have. You know, have fun, work harder though.
Speaker 2:You know I'm getting ready to go on a big research trip and I just finished going to a conference and working very hard to get this paper ready and, like you, I would work, work really, really hard and then every now and then I'd say, OK, it's time to go watch Justified, or it's time to go walk the dog or do something really silly and enjoy it while I'm doing it.
Speaker 5:What about you, ashley? What are you going to add to this? I would say my best advice was given to me by Dr Stroyfert, who's the dean of the Honors College, and, to sum it up, it's be curious and then very similar to Mary failure is the best teacher. What Dr Schroepfert said when we were having our convocation, you know, the new freshman class was coming together and he said the attitude of this one student in the Honors College that he thought was very outstanding and that has tried to apply as a attitude for the whole Honors College, was I don't know, but let me figure it out.
Speaker 5:And that has changed the way that I approach pretty much all of my coursework interactions and, I think, changed really the opportunities that I've been given as well, because when I was working for Michaela, I was, you know, in the digital design studio, pretty much just a personal assistant and one of the things that came up the podcast was still a volunteer project. They were like, hey, do you want to edit podcast episodes? I said I don't know how to do that, but I could probably figure it out. And then, like 10 billion failures later, here we are and we're still producing episodes and now it's a job and I love doing this job and we're going to a conference in July. You know it's crazy the ripple effect that that kind of an attitude can have by just saying you know what?
Speaker 2:let's try it, let's try it. You know, as I watch students over the years, it did seem as though students got more intimidable and more intimidated and less out there. And I think all three of you are saying you know, get out there and live this time and use this time, work hard, play hard and have a good four years, or three and a half years, in college. I can't wait to see what you all say in your junior year. Well, thank you so much. We'll see you in a couple months. Be safe this summer and also, if you come up with any good podcast ideas, let us know.
Speaker 5:If anybody has any questions about freshman year, sophomore year, college for Mary and Dominic, you can always contact us through our Gmail or leave a comment. If you're listening to us on YouTube, that'd be cool.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll get those questions to you. Thanks for coming in so well. That was pretty interesting. I enjoyed that. I guess that's a wrap, ashley. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 5: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.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye.
