BeckerLit&SocReflections

Back to my personal page __ Reflections __

I thought it was interesting how the author went back to college to see what the college life was all about and write about her experiences for others to read and learn. After reading this story it made me realize a lot about college. I enjoyed reading about Nathan's experience with college and was able to relate to her in some ways and others not so much. I feel that if she went to experience college life at a younger age things would have been alot different because she was not accepted by a lot of people because of her age. Her experiences would have been different however, I feel like she would have had the overall same output on it. If she had lived with someone else instead of just herself she would have had more experiences to write about. I feel that that is a big part of college life, meeting new people and having to room with somebody you do not know at first. The part where she was caught drinking I found to be funny because she thought there was nothing wrong with it because she was of age. She did not seem to understand why it was wrong for her to be drinking. The article gave a great view on how college life is and I enjoyed reading it. The section about the doors being decorated and the RA's putting up important information was so true!
 * Reading One:**

After reading the second part of //My Freshmen Year,// It made me wonder why college students say they want to get involved, but then where there are opportunites for them to get involved, they don't. With that being said, What does a community mean to college students? Is there something that college students are looking for to get involved in that colleges do not have? Personally I feel that being involved in different clubs on campus is a great way to meet new people, make new memories, and have fun. College students say they are always busy doing work, however, everyone needs a break here and there, so why not join a club and get involved?! When the RA of Nathan's hall took a poll to see what the residents of her hall wanted to do, they seemed interested in having a movie night. Therefore, the RA went about setting up movie nights for the residents to come and attend. A lot of the people who said they were interested did not end up coming and eventually it was just Nathan and her RA. Last year when I lived in the dorm, I think it would have been a great thing to do on a Sunday, just relax and watch a movie. There is not much commitment to a movie night, just to come once in a while and enjoy a movie with people in your hall. Last year I lived in a Living and Learning Community, however I would not necessarily said that was a "community" to me. It was a great way to meet new people with the same interest as me but they were the students who were in the same classes as me as well, so I often saw them a lot through out the day. It was a great way to meet people at first but then I felt like it was too repetitive, seeing the same people all the time. Joining clubs makes a person become a well rounded person and gets them to meet other people. A person does not have to belong to one "community" they can have interests in different things and be involved in more then one community. Now that I can look back and reflect on the Living and Learning Community I was in last year, I would think I would have choosen not to live in it so I could have met different people, besides those who were in my major and had a lot of the same interests. Nathan asked her residents, "what does a community mean to you" and a lot of them did not really know what it meant to them. Since they did not really know what a community meant to them, I think that had a lot to do with why they did not become involved. If they were more involved, they would have joined communities and grown as a person. College is a place to experience what life has to bring you. It is a place to grow as a person and go outside of your bubble that you were in in High School. There are many great experiences for people to have and many things to get involved in. People just need to get out there and enjoy themselves by joining clubs before they get out in the work world and things become really busy and they do not have as much time for what interests them!
 * Reading Two:**

I really enjoyed reading this section of the book. If was interesting to see what exchange/international students thought about American when they came over to visit. Most of the students Nathan talked to said that the ways Americans did different things was very different from the way they did things in their own countries. One German student said that americans would pass by and say "how are you?" and she would respond back and the American student just kept walking by. In Germany "how are you" is the start of a conversation where in america it is really just a way to say hi to others. I strongly agree with this! A lot of times when i pass someone I know I say "hey whats up?" or "hi how are you?" but I do not really expect to have a conversation with them unless they are one of my close friends. One of the students, Midori, found it surprising that American students leave the classroom right when class is over and do not talk to anyone else. Another student stated that in their own country they would leave class and go to lunch with the students in the class room. I think that is a good idea. It is a great way to get to know other students in your class and make more friends. However, I feel that most students would not like that idea. They like to go and eat with their own friends and would feel awkward eating with their class. When international students come over to America, they are not exactly sure what a friend is, because to them a friend is something completely different here than in their own country. One Mexican student said that Americans were always too busy to get to know them. Another student was talking about how her roommate in America was just a roommate and she did not want anything more. I feel that personally if I was rooming with someone from another country I would want to make them feel welcomed in America and would do different things throughout the day to make her feel welcomed. I would be interested in what their country was like and what they enjoyed doing. Just because someone from another country comes over to America and isnt exactly like us or like the friends we have, does not mean we can not expand our horizion and become friends with them. One topic I strongly agreed with was that americans do not spend a lot of time socializing face to face. I know sometimes I go on facebook and talk to someone who lives in the other room or sometimes I text my roommate who is in another room of the apartment. It is just the way americans have evolved and people from other countries are not used to it. I feel that americans and students from other countries are all different. Everyone has their own interests and views on different things. I feel that Americans should make international students feel more welcomed. They need to put theirselves in the shoes of the international students and see what it feels like. If an american went to another country and was not welcomed, they would not like it. Americans need to think about this stuff when they encounter international students.
 * Reading Three:**

The article was a good way to describe how a person is well-educated. The authors way of explaning what well-educated means to him is very interesting. He stated that it did not mean how many years of schooling you had because you may not be good at spelling, but you are very smart with something else of your interest. Therefore that does not mean you are not educated. Kohn said "I've come to realize just how many truly brilliant people cannot spell or punctuate." People are all educated in their own way and to be educated does not mean to same to every person no matter what their education is. Kohn said that there were poor definitions of being educated. They included, seat time, job skills, test scores, memorization. I agree with these all because there is not one way to tell whether a person is educated. There are several different things that would need to be done to figure that out. I really enjoyed reading this article, because what the author had to say was interesting and the way he described his wife and himself through out made it even more interesting because he was using real life experiences.
 * Reading Four****:**

//Claiming an Education// was a very interesting article. I found it to be very true what the author was saying about men being the ones that are higher in education and have higher jobs than women. After reading that article and they said that at an all women's college, men are the one who have the upper levels of faculty and administration it made me think about Bloomsburg. At Bloomsburg that remains true as well, those who are in charge of the school are mainly men. Why is that? Women should have the same opportunity as men yet men at the ones that always seem to have the higher jobs. However, I have found that I have had an equal amount of male and female professors, maybe even a few more females. In the article the said that was not true at schools. Even with the male professors I have had, they have not treated me any different from males in the class and they have not disrespected me. I think its odd how a lot of men have written books about "men" where there are not many books that women have written. There is no reason that women can not write books like that or that they do not write books.I liked where it was stated what responsibility to yourself means. If you have responsibility to yourself you can become your own person and change into a better person. That was a great point!
 * Reading Five:**

The three education satires that were read were all very good and gave me a better idea of how to change mine for the EAR project. The first story, //The Animal School: A Fable// was very cute and creative. I could use something like that in my classroom when I am teaching. Students would like a story like that and find it to be funny! I liked how the schooling for the animals was what they did for a living and they got graded on it. The squirrel part was neat how he got hurt and received bad grades because of it. The next reading about future classroom technology will most likely be true in a few years. The way technology is advancing students will have no idea in a few years what chalk is and will see it as a waste of time. Just like when I look back in time at things that were invented a while ago and think they are pointless because everything is advancing so much! It was a humorous type of writing because they are making fun of the 21st century classroom. There are many different ways that different such as stories, brochures, flyers, and much more can be changed completely by the way they are made. They type of language used in them can be directed towards a different audience. Satires are neat because they could be the complete opposite of how you feel about something, but the audience reading it would really have no idea. You could be completely making up what you are saying and there is no real way for anyone to tell.
 * Reading Six:**

It is true that a lot of people now how college degrees, making it hard for people to get jobs in the field of their interest. For a person to get a job in what they are interested in, they are going to need more then a basic degree for what they want to do. For example, somebody who wants to be a teacher is going to need something else besides teacher as a degree. Something else would be a degree for special education or deaf ed or something else along those lines. I found it very interesting that the number of freshmen planning on getting a master's degree rose from 31% in 1972 or 42% in 2008. Therefore people feel like they are going to need to go on and get a masters degree because a msters isnt enough. I do not agree with the article. I feel that a college degree is necessary to be well rounded and educated. It is a great life experience and I feel like it is steps to becoming an adult. If I were in the job field hiring staff, I would not want to hire somebody who did not have a college degree. I would feel alot better hiring somebody who had a degree and had the experience. Even thought the top 10 jobs do not need a college degree, over time they will most likely end up needing a degree and more people are going to end up going to college. If the article before said that more people are attending college, what is the reason if they are not going to need a degree in their field for a job? People are coming up with different ideas of how to stay away from college so they can save on the expenses. Vocational schools are a good experience for students however, I do not feel that it is enough for students to build on. I really agree with this statement, "You can’t cut the mustard, you shouldn’t go to college or university". Everyone has their own dream and by saying they can't go is ruining the dream they had of a career. If I was told I couldn't go to school and be a teacher, I would not know what to do because that has been what I wanted to do for years and coming to school made me want to persue that dream job of mine even more.
 * Reading Seven:**

Chapter 1 of //A Hope in the Unseen-// This is very interesting to read and see how other students go through school. Comparing to my own education, this is completely different. To have only 79 out of 1,389 students get a B or higher in the school would not meet my expectations. Cedric Jennings' was going through a hard time with school and everything that he had to accomplish. He worked hard to get what he wanted but even then, he did not seem to get what he wanted. The students that attended this school were not very well educated and it seemed as if the teachers did not do much to make them more educated and do better in school. When students are not doing well in a classroom it is somewhat the teachers responsibility to talk to the student about their grade and how they can work to improve it. What good is it if students are not getting grades higher than a B? Is this acceptable to the school and for the students? Since these students are not doing well in school, they are not going to want to further their education by going on to college because they are going to feel like they are not good enough to face the college world and the life after that. Chapter 1 of //Hunger of Memory//- This story is a very interesting story! However, I do not agree with the part of having the parents only use English at home when they talk to Rodriguez. He speaks two languages and the school should be accepting to that. Since the school did make him speak English at home, he did become more social in school and wanted to be involved. However, I feel that there were other ways to go about this. He could have been taken out of the room for a little bit to do things to feel more comfortable speaking English or he could have just worked in the classroom with different students. Was this the only thing that could have been done to make him feel like he fit in at school and to get him to talk in classes? He did find a public identity and become more mature by what they school did, but like I said before, other things could have been done and I do not agree with what the school did.
 * Reading Eight:**