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.