Community Service

There are many problems in our community that a little community service can help alleviate. Domestic abuse is a real social problem, and by helping out at a women's shelter which is always understaffed and in need of help and supplies, you can help. There are some every simple ways to help. Just by volunteering your time you can help some women in need. Be it watching her kids while she looks for a job or teaching a skill to help them make a life for themselves, your time helps them greatly. Another way to help is clothing and necessity drives. These shelters are always short on shampoo, soap, toilet paper, everyday house hold items we take for granted. They are sometimes even low on some food supplies.

Academic Plan

There are no set plans as to what I will major in but I do plan to go in to something to do with medicine. Pharmacology, Physical therapy, or some form of radiology would be the most likely fields for me to go into. There are two classes I know I will have to take in the very near future. I should take a Biology of some sort, if not a couple different ones. The class I am really dreading is Anatomy and Physiology. The whole cadaver thing really freaks me out. If I go into Pharmacology then another chemistry class would be a good idea too. Then there are the standard general education classes like trigonometry or calculus, English Composition II, maybe a history class even though I already have some credit there. I should have very few elective classes left to take after that. Playing volleyball here at Butler will limit the total number of hours I'll be able to take. After Butler I would like to go to Kansas State University, but they are more or a veterinarian school so I will probably end up looking elsewhere to finish my college degree.

There were many connected and important themes throughout this course. They are important to being an active member of both the school and community. Community service, time management and coping with change were the most important themes we went over in class. No matter where one is at in life community service is always a good way to spend ones time. Being able to manage time was important in high school but you always had your parents there to help push and motivate you along the way, but once you enter college and out on your own there is no outside influence to get you to manage your time to make sure you get everything in that you both want and need to do. The academic planning was one of the most important in looking forward to our next semester and year as we plan our futures. The Butler recourse section we did was helpful in knowing where to go for information to complete assignments and research papers. The academic honesty section was key in reminding us to be honest and respectable students by not plagiarizing and claiming other students work as our own. As we talked about these themes we were also encouraged to use them as we completed work, and went on with other classes.

It can take quite awhile to actually motivate myself to do it, but reading is one of my strengths in school, always has been. I may not look forward to it but I don’t usually have to reread things to understand them. As long as I am left alone and have some quiet music I can get the reading done and move on. My strength in this class wasn’t so much reading because we didn’t do much but it was writing. For some reason writing for this class wasn’t so hard as it usually is for me. Writing is usually not one of my strong points when it comes to papers and such. But then again writing six two hundred and fifty word paragraphs isn’t so hard either, but a sixteen hundred word essay was a little more difficult. It was difficult making sure there was enough written for each section. My advice to a new student to this class is to just write. Don’t plan it all out just write what comes to mind and that’s usually exactly what you’ll need. Don’t sweat the small stuff, just write. Over thinking the paragraphs will actually make them worse, not better.

Procrastinating is my biggest weakness as a learner. I could do better in all aspects of my school work if I would actually take the time to do my work and not put it off so long that I have to scramble to get it done and rush so much that I don’t do it to my full potential. It really hurts my academic performance when it comes to test time. Putting off studying for tests till it’s the day of or late the night before is my biggest problem. If I would study in little bits as the class moves through the information and keep on top of it I would actually learn the information not memorizing it. Memorizing is fine for a test but it falls short when the final exam roles around and you have to then rememorize things because you forgot them after that sections test. Not procrastinating would probably be the solution to my writing problem as well. If I wouldn’t have put them off so long I would probably do better and get better grades on them too. Being able to express myself in written words has never really been easy because I over think what I’m writing, which is worse writers block and not having anything to say.

The most important thing I learned in class was the Butler resources. Knowing what they are and how to use them will be very handy when it’s time to write my sociology research paper and others that will surly follow in the months to come. I knew my way around our high school library by senior year after having done so many papers, but I do like knowing right off where every thing is so it doesn't take my two years to figure it out. the best part about learning the resources is the Internet resources. I do all my work collecting information on-line, so that will be the most important information I learned.

The academic plan was probably the best activity we did. It had the most relevance for me because I had been wondering what I should take and the classes I wanted to take. It really helped me to figure out how to go about looking up what classes I would need and meeting my advisor too. I don't know that there was one activity that sticks out as not being relevant to our course. For the most part the lessons and activities were very relevant and worth while.

Academic Dishonesty

Many universities and even high schools are finding that students don't think cheating is wrong, but instead an easy way to get ahead. They see no moral issue with using someone else’s work as their own. This is quite concerning to teachers, when there students don't think cheating is a bad thing. There are many different definitions to academic dishonesty. By plagiarizing, cheating, and fabrication of data and information is all forms of dishonesty. But there have been cases of some students going even further and "hacking" their way into school files and changing grades, coping test and quizzes. One of the most widely used deterrents for cheating is a no tolerance policy with the punishment of expulsion for any form of dishonesty. By holding students accountable they have found students are better about citing sources and making sure they don’t just copy and paste all the information gathered in their papers. Teachers have many resources to help them find ways to prevent dishonesty in the classroom. Turnitin.com has become a very well known cite for submitting papers and having them checked for plagerism. The student submits their paper and it is checked against both published works as well as all previously submitted works too. Working in a group can make it hard to stay honest on who's work is whose and so forth, but there are some fairly simple guide lines to keeping a group honest.

Time Management

When you manage your time poorly you are asking for disaster. By planning ahead and sticking with it you can usually avoid sticky situations when things come due and they are not yet done. It is one of the worst feelings to know that you had time to get something done but put it off so long that you do not get it done, or do not get it done to the best of your ability. There are some easy ways to make sure you manage your time well and get things done on time. By making a calendar or keeping a planner you can keep track of what is coming up and know when you must have things done. By staying on top of your schedule you can stay on top if not ahead of it. One of the major differences between staying on top of work in college verses high school is having your parents there to help keep you on task. In college there is no one to keep on you and make sure it's done, you have to be more self motivated and organized then you were previously.

Case Study #4


Failing class can happen to almost any student no matter how strong or weak a student they maybe. Many campuses have different resources available to help these students. One of Butler's best resources is their learning lab that offers free tutoring sections to help students. No previous scheduled time is required to get help in every subject offered. If study habits are a problem for him then enrolling in an independent study class to learn study habits as well as test taking skills to do better in class. A visit to the registrars office is the quickest way to get into one of these classes. Depending upon what class he is failing and what book the teacher is using; some text books have their own web sites that offer help. From practice problems, to solutions, to Q & A pages, some text books can offer extra help too. But the quickest way to get help is to just ask the teacher questions. Whether you ask in class or after, or even in an e-mail the teacher is almost always happy to help in any way possible to help you succeed.

My name is Rachel Moore and I am from Olathe, Kansas. I came to Butler to play volleyball. I still have no idea what I want to major in but right now I am listed as pre-med. Last year I thought I wanted to do something medical but now I am begining to wonder if I might actually want to look for other ideas.