Monthly Archives: March 2019

Chapter 3 Option 2

--Original published at MaddieHinson

Personally, throughout college I have had very different sleep habits than the rest of my friends. Pretty much every weekend, I have work at Starbucks at 5 in the morning. This was going on both freshman year and sophomore. My routine then would be, I would go out with my friends on Friday and Saturday until about 1 am, and then wake up around 4 to go to work, until I got off at 1pm. Afterwards, I would nap until like 5pm, and then do the whole thing over again. My friends never understood how I functioned during the day, but it was just what I had to do, and I survived. However this year, I have been spreading out when I work in the mornings to about every other day, and that way I don’t have to play “Catch up” after the weekend is over.

I know that my sleeping habits are different than a lot of people in college, especially if they don’t have jobs on the weekend mornings, but it has just been something that I have adjusted to and my body is used to it. Personally, I still take naps here and there and I think it’s fairly healthy. The unhealthy part about it is that I will almost always drink coffee in the morning and even throughout the day to supplement for when I am feeling tired. I don’t rely on it, but it’s just something that mentally makes me believe that I have more energy to get through the day.

Honestly, everyone is different, and I don’t think there is a set amount of time each person should sleep every night. I believe that you kind of have to monitor yourself, and factor in, how busy your day is. For instance, on Tuesdays, and Fridays, I know I work early in the morning, but I also only have one short class in the afternoon. For those days I don’t feel like I need the full eight hours of sleep to be able to function. If I don’t sleep well the night before, then usually I’ll try to sleep a little more the next night, to kind of supplement for it.

To improve my sleeping habits, I could probably stop watching Netflix right before bed, I know the screens aren’t great for your quality of sleep. I also sometimes stress about what I have to do the next day, and that really effects my dreams, and how “awake” I am during my sleep. To fix that, I should just take a few minutes and clear my mind and not worry about what the next day has in store.

Chapter 3 First Impression

--Original published at Grace's College Blog

My current sleep habits are poor, to say the least. I am often so tired that, in order to get through the rest of the day, I have to take about an hour nap after classes. I often go to sleep around 2 a.m. and wake up around 9 or 10 everyday. Most nights before I go to bed I lay down and watch TV until I am tired enough to go to sleep. And after, it will usually take me about an hour or more to actually fall asleep. I also sometimes drink coffee late at night.

I don’t think my sleep habits are necessarily the healthiest, but I am still getting about 7 or 8 hours. I think if I were to not watch TV directly before bed I would have a much easier time falling asleep. I also think working more during the day and not napping so much would help when trying to fall asleep at night. I have been working on improving on amount of naps per week by keeping myself more occupied during the day by going to the gym and working on homework during the day instead of late at night. This way I can go to bed knowing that I was productive during the day. This would help to reduce the amount of stress I feel on a daily basis as well. Improving the quality of my sleep would greatly increase my academic performance and stress levels.

I think a realistic goal for amount of sleep for college students is about 7 hours. This requires improving your time management skills. You have to balance eating meals, social time, time spent on academic work, and sometimes athletics. This is definitely a possibility, but it takes a lot of work to manage your time wisely.

Sleep

--Original published at Jess Principe's Blog

In my opinion, healthy sleeping habits are often disregarded by most people. Even those who try to be healthy by eating a smart balance of nutritious foods and get plenty of exercise, often leave a healthy sleep schedule behind. I personally try to aim for 7-8 hours of sleep per night and typically get in that range, however on the weekends that can sometimes diminish from being out late with friends and not sleeping in much the following morning. I do not function well without sleep, I feel irritable, unenergetic, and groggy if I get anything less than 6 ½ hours for more than two nights in a row. In addition, I rarely nap during the day, so getting the 7-8 hours at night is what I always try to aim for to be my best self.

Most college kids that do not have a healthy sleep schedule and say it is because they stay up late every night doing work, probably are just not managing their free time very well. Time management is crucial, especially if you are participating in additional clubs or sports on top of the academic workload a college student receives. There is definitely time in college to do fun and social things, especially on the weekends, however, the amount of time available to do social things, get school work done, and sleep at least 7 hours on weekends will depend on how well you manage your time during the week (monday-friday). I think a logistical goal for a college student is 7 hours at least every night. If one can’t maintain that, they may just need to re-organize their day to day schedules and manage their free time a little bit better. As a student athlete, practice time, lifts, and missed classes every once in a while due to games causes me to plan well in advance for my school work and every day to manage getting homework and studying done before and after practice time. These time management skills that I have acquired in high school and throughout the rest of college, I certainly will carry with me throughout life to try and always get a healthy 7-8 hours of sleep per night to be successful and live well during the day.

Chapter 3- Sleep

--Original published at NataliesCollegeBlog

When I first came to college, I had a goal to go to bed at 10:30 every night. This goal has never happened and a different routine happened instead. My actual sleep schedule currently is to go to bed at 1am, wake up around 8:30am, take a 2-3 hour nap once my classes are done, and then go to track practice. After evaluating my sleeping habits through the first semester, I have realized how unbalanced and unhealthy my sleep schedule truly is. Even after I take a nap, I still feel tired and do not feel like doing anything until later in the day. Another part of the problem with college students and sleeping is that you have to share a dorm room with a roommate as well. Sometimes your roommate might need to stay up later than you do to study and this can also affect how much sleep you get too. Overall, staying up late to cram in studying and homework has really taken a toll on my sleeping schedule.

Eight hours of sleep is ideal for everyone, but for a college student 5-6 hours is more realistic. The reason my sleep schedule is not healthy is because of one thing: poor time management. I like to push things off until the last minute and this is why I stay up to late doing school work. Doing school work during the free time I have in-between classes is something I am going to try to do this semester. I will keep this goal by forcing myself to go to the library in-between classes, rather than going back to my room and taking a nap. This will hopefully help me get work done earlier in the day and allow me to go to bed earlier.

Sleep

--Original published at Zach Nawrocki's Blog

I am currently in my second year of college and I have learned a lot about my sleep schedule and how much rest my body needs each night to feel fully awake and focused during the day. In my first year of college my sleep habits were all over the place. One night I would go to bed at 2 or 3 a.m. and the next night I would go to bed at 10 or 11 p.m., this took a major toll on my body. Since my sleep pattern was so messed up from going to bed early one night to going to bed really late the next night I never really felt fully awake during the day and it showed in how I performed on tests and overall in class. I did this irregular sleep pattern all of my first year of college.

For my second year of college I have gotten a lot better at controlling my sleep pattern and having a more regular sleep schedule. Now the latest I have gone to bed this year has been 1 a.m., which has only happened 2 or 3 times. I mostly go to bed around 12 a.m. and get up around 7:20 a.m., this means that I get around 7 hours of sleep per night usually. Considering that I am a college student I feel that 7 hours of sleep per night is a good amount of rest. My body also feels a lot better during the day and I feel more motivated to do homework rather then go back to my bed and take a “short” nap which most college students do.

I consider 7 hours of sleep a sufficient amount of sleep per night for a college student considering the amount of homework that most students have and also a social life. One way that I plan to improve my sleep habits is to tighten up my sleep pattern a little more so that I consistently go to bed around 12 a.m. Lastly, I plan to turn off my phone early so that I am not laying in my bed watching YouTube or messing around on social media right before I go to bed.

Sleep

--Original published at Emily's college blog

As I head into the second half of my second semester of college, I would have to say that my sleeping habits have not yet become unhealthy.  I try to get at least seven or eight hours of sleep each night or even take twenty-minute naps during the day.  I would say this is a good, healthy amount of sleep for a student in college. However, since I do not have an 8am class this semester, I find that I am going to sleep much later and waking up later.  Even on the weekends, I find myself not wanting to get out of bed until about noon because my body has become used to sleeping in that late during the week.  Now I am uncertain how I managed to get up for my 8am every other day during the week last semester or how I managed to wake up at 6:30am everyday last year.  Of course, it only seems unmanageable now because I am going to sleep much later than I was when I had to get up at those earlier times.  

A realistic goal for amount of sleep per night for a college student should be at least eight hours.  This allows the brain enough time to process everything that a student studied and learned the day before.  To improve my sleeping habits, I want to start going to bed earlier and getting up earlier in order to get more done during the morning and early afternoon.  I can achieve this by putting my phone down earlier in the evening and staying away from sugars and caffeine during the second half of the day.     

Chapter 3 First Impression Prompts

Hand writing on a notebook

Here are the  prompts for this week. If you select Options 1 or 2, use the tag “Sleep” and if you select Options 3 or 4, use the tag “Drugs”:

Option 1:

In this TED talk, Russell Foster outlines 3 prominent theories about why we sleep. Watch the talk and argue for the theory you find the most convincing. Make sure to explain your thoughts about the credibility of each of the three theories.

Option 2:

College students are often heavily sleep deprived as they sacrifice sleep in order to study, work, and/or have a social life in addition to their academic commitments. Assess your current sleep habits and how healthy you think they are. What is a realistic goal for amount of sleep per night for a college student and how can you improve your sleep habits?

Option 3:

Recently, several states have legalized recreational use of marijuana and even more are considering it. This has lead to both celebration and condemnation depending on who you ask. Medicinal use of marijuana is still controversial as well. In your blog post, take a position on both medical and recreational use of marijuana. Should they be legal or not? Make sure to point out pros and cons to both arguments.

Option 4:

When it comes to treating addiction, two prominent approaches are the abstinence model and the harm reduction model. Most people are more familiar with the abstinence model, which seeks to completely eliminate all use of the problematic substance and prioritizes sobriety (an example would be 12-step programs like AA). The harm reduction model prioritizes things differently, in that the primary concern is preventing negative consequences of substance use (an example would be needle-swapping programs that provide clean needles for drug users to prevent the spread of diseases like HIV and Hepatitis). This is an over-simplification of the models, but you can find a little more background on each approach here. Which approach seems like the better idea to you? Explain which you would recommend if a loved one needed help with an addiction.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator

First Impression: Motivation

--Original published at Jessica K's College Blog

Motivation can become one of the greatest driving-points in a person’s life, whether it is for a short-term or long-term goal that they may be facing in the future.

For the majority, one of many ideas that relate to motivation is a change in self, relative to weight control, health, beauty, , business in a job, or a boost in self-confidence; which can mostly be obtained by weeks or months of a set schedule. For the most part, the idea of getting used to a fixed schedule will deter most, but there will always be the sense of satisfaction that comes alongside the action when people finally get the result they aimed for.

If someone ever needs the motivation to get something done, the idea of “Everything will get better after this” or “You’ll be a better you” is what people need to understand if they want to get something satisfactory in the future, the simple act of believing in themselves.

Why Elizabethtown?

--Original published at Alex's Thoughts

Elizabethtown College was not originally my first choice for going to college. But when I was comparing it with the other school I intended on attending, several reasons caused me to choose Etown.

The school I intended to go to at that point was not Elizabethtown. I was debating on going to a large state school that had accepted me into its honors program. It had a large alumni network, virtually unlimited resources, and a well-established program. However, something about Elizabethtown caused me to reconsider. When I toured Elizabethtown, I noticed that the students seemed to be generally more cheerful. I also got to meet my professors, whereas I didn’t even see an engineering professor at the school I was intending on going to at that point. The more I thought about it, the more I began to seriously reconsider going to the state school. On paper, it was the obvious choice in terms of resources and prestige. However, something about Elizabethtown drew me back to it every time. Two years later, I believe that I can finally put into words what I felt at that time.

The state school would have set me up for life. I would’ve met an employer at one of their job fairs, gotten a decent job by virtue of where I got my degree from instead of the quality of education, and lived out my life as a good alumnus. Easy as that. But I don’t want that. I want challenge, and the comfort that whatever job or employment I find is by virtue of whatever skills and relationships I cultivate. In other words, I was raised to expect nothing but a fair chance and to earn everything. I would not have felt that I was rightfully earning what I would have gotten at that state school, while Elizabethtown offered much more in terms of growing as a person.

Our department was not as large as that state school’s, nor does it have as many resources. However, I can be a contributing individual in the department. I can earn my own way by attending job fairs and win opportunities through the virtue of who I am, the different opportunities for growth I have been offered at Elizabethtown, and the secure education I have received with the classes I have taken. I am able to have a dual concentration in engineering, with some extra business classes thrown in. I would not have had nearly the amount of freedom to customize my degree at the state school that I do here. In other words, I would not have been able to tailor my education to what I truly want to do to nearly the same extent. I want a challenge in terms of receiving my education, as confining myself to the status quo would just be boring to a
mind-numbing extent. I can challenge myself and grow as an individual. This will ultimately give me more opportunities than anything I could have found at the state school. All by virtue of giving me more room to grow as an individual engineer instead of being confined to a single, set concentration.

What motivates me to succeed at Elizabethtown are a few simple things. The first and most prevalent is that I simply cannot succeed the way I want to in any discipline besides engineering and the art of industry. I do not have the patience or composure to deal with customers for a prolonged amount of time, and I do not have any interest in pursuing fields outside of science and mathematics professionally. I also do not have much patience for abstract reasoning, so sciences and mathematics that do not correlate to real-world solutions are not my forte either. I have always been fascinated by machines and factories, so my only course for making a living would appear to be involving myself in industry. The second reason is to be able to provide for myself and my family. Engineering is a very lucrative field, and extremely adaptable in terms of location. This is a good thing, as I would like to eventually have a family in a location of my choosing. Being able to afford to live there while working at a job I enjoy is all I want. The third thing that motivates me to succeed is a sense of pride. I have already started down the track I wish, and nothing short of a disaster will stop me from trying my best to succeed on my given track.

As for an intervention, I typically drive to the area I am originally from whenever I need more motivation to succeed in my classes. I am not far away, and I grew up in an economically depressed area. Offshoring and the decline of American manufacturing hit my home area hard, and it shows. Whenever I need motivation to succeed, I drive through my home area, and look at the abandoned factories, the rusty machines, the polluted rivers, and the mountains that seem more like walls. As an engineer and a professional, it is my duty to succeed such that I may bring prosperity into areas such as this. While people older than I am took opportunity from the Rust Belt in favor of cutting costs, my ultimate goal is to bring opportunity back. It is a dream of mine to be able to imagine industry in place of rot, fish in place of pollutants, and an overall sense of well-being in place of the grey skies of my homeland. Whenever I lose motivation, I dream of my homeland, and hope that I may do something to ensure its future prosperity.

Motivation Blog Post

--Original published at Nick's Blog

Option 2: Motivation

I originally came to Elizabethtown College mainly because I liked the campus more than other colleges that I had toured. The other real reason was that my first choice college didn’t give me enough off tuition to make it affordable, and Elizabethtown was my second choice. I have come to really like the Elizabethtown college campus and want to continue here for all four years. So while Elizabethtown might have not been my original choice, it has since become the college that I like the most.

In my classes currently I motivate myself by telling myself that college is the only real way that I can succeed the way I want to in life and that I need to maintain grades to keep on that path. My only plans right now involve finishing college then getting a job in the field that I majored in. If I can’t achieve that then I wouldn’t have achieved my dreams in any way. Everything hinges upon these next four years and I need to stay focused on making sure my grades stay at least mostly good.

The only real intervention for giving me more motivation I could think of would be a glimpse at failure. That would continually motivate me because above all, I can’t fail. Everything I have right now relies on my continued grades and I cannot even picture a scenario without them. Beyond that there isn’t much right now that would motivate me to do well in classes.

At the end of the day, that is all that really motivates me at this time, the fear of failure.