FLOW

   In our previous classes we talked about flow according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In the flow, one is highly focused and not easily distracted. One tends to have an overall sense of satisfaction due to a balance of challenge and skill which ultimately leads to mastery.

Today I believe I may have reached the stage of being in, "flow." I went to the library around noon today and I started revising my notes for one of my materials science classes. I got bored mid-way so I decided to take a 5 minute break and then go back to that subject. I kept looking to see how many pages I had left to read in the required sections. However once I started my biomaterials homework, I actually went into flow. I completely forgot time existed as I began searching for information on skin grafts and the effect of chondrotin sulfate as a major contributor to the surrounding dermis as a glycosaminoglycan. I effortlessly read countless of websites about wound healing and the stages of a burn. I wasn't even tempted to check my phone for a text message. Nevertheless, it wasn't until my stomach started rumbling did I realize I was hungry and I had been working on biomaterials for 3 hours straight. I was amazed at how much work that I had accomplished in what seemed only an hour of my time. It was as if it was only myself, my Dell laptop, and my notebook existed for that given amount time. I didn't even realize that the music from my Pandora station had stopped playing because I had been listening to it for so long. Being in the flow further confirmed how I want to go into implants and prosthetics. I hope I can get into this flow state for my other classes, especially before my finals start.

Also, there is a really cool app game called flow which I highly recommend to anybody who wants to spend some down time during exams.

T Minus 1.5 Weeks

Finals are almost here!
AHHHH EEEEECCCK OHH NOO WATCH OUT BEWARE THEY"RE GONNA COME FIND YOU

  So I don't know about you, but finals are coming a lot closer than it seems. Today, as I was planning out my schedule for exams it really hit me that they are almost here. Its time for late nights in the library where the only people you see are the people who are working around you and the delivery driver. Clemmons is full of people decked out in pajama bottoms with bags so large and dark it appears as though they are raccoons  Nevertheless, I've decided that this time around I'm going to be more prepared in how and when I study. Normally I have had the mentality of staying up late to study and waking up around 10 or 11 AM  to commence studying again. However, this time I plan on getting at least 8 hours of sleep each night. This will definitely be a challenging goal since I already have one of my goals this semester to be in bed by 1 AM each night. Yet, going to bed early won't be as bad as it seems. Not only will I feel rested, but I will also find a great seat in the library and maybe even a parking spot where I won't get towed!
  Another way that I plan to change the way that I study is utilizing the 5 day plan to study for my finals. I've already started using it for my tests and its made a difference in my preparedness for my tests. I don't feel as stressed out anymore and the notion of cramming the night before has slowly decreased. I still feel nervous before my tests, but I don't freak out when someone mentions a term or phrase that I don't recall studying before.
  The last and probably one of the hardest things that I plan on changing as I study for these exams is no music. I normally listen to music as I study which has lead to good and bad results. Music helps me tune everything else around me out as I concentrate on what is at hand. My mother is the youngest of 10 kids, so noise is apart of my daily childhood. All through high school I did homework while babysitting children ages 2-15. Thus noise almost gives me an at home vibe while doing work. However, I've found out that when I study without noise I feel as though I am able to get more things done. I feel less distracted and I don't feel as though time is slipping away. So hopefully this no music thing will not only mimic the environment for the test which will help with the association concept, but I won't blow out my eardrums at the same time.

Finals you are the weakest link...Goodbye

I Believe in Office Hours

 So on the last day of class before Thanksgiving break, my materials science (structure and defects) professor announced that if we wanted to know our current status in his class that all we had to do was email him. Immediately I thought oh my goodness this is going to be a can of worms or even worse the mother of all messes. Now I tried to think optimistic, but it takes 8 people including myself to accomplish his weekly homework. In addition, I did not to as well as I would like to on the tests for this class. On the second test, two people in the class received 100's and one person received a 102..There were 3 bonus questions on the test. Nevertheless, I was dreading emailing him all break about asking my status in his class. I would always get nervous about emailing a teacher because you never know how they are going to take an email. What you may consider sincere may feel like a hate crime to them. Yet I finally put all my anxious feelings aside and sent him the email on Wednesday.
 I finally received a response from my professor Monday afternoon and to my surprise I wasn't doing as horribly as I thought. My professor mentioned that I have a pleasant demeanor and that he has noticed me in office hours. I was excited just to know that he has noticed me in office hours. In addition, he stated that my current grade is in the C+ range. I did a large fist pump to the air once I read this comment and I almost fell out of my chair when I read that he would raise my grade 1/3 a letter grade if I improved significantly on the final exam. I called my mother because I couldn't believe the news I had read. Even now, I still can't believe that those very words actually formed and came out of my professor's mouth. I've heard stories about how students have been able to get their grades raised after solely talking to a teacher. I myself thought this is only a thing that happens to kids in the college where pleading with the professor can raise the grade on a paper. Whereas in engineering school, you can't talk your way as to why you put that the vertical asymptote was -1 instead of from the positive side it approaches negative infinity.
  All in all, office hours are not as dreadful as they seem. It does take time getting used to, but having one of my goals to attend office hours really made a difference. It may not make a large difference like it has for this class. Nevertheless, I do believe in office hours as a necessity for academic achievement.

A New College

  In class on Tuesday we received an article titled, Why we have college by Louis Menand of The New Yorker. I myself do not read magazines often, yet this was an unique article about why we need college and its purpose. Menand mentioned two different theories about college, 1 and 2. Theory 1 took an extrinsic take, where Motivation 2.0 prevailed with grades and a sorting process of achievement. Theory 2 was fueled with intrinsic motivation, Motivation 3.0, and a need for democracy. What really stuck with me in this article didn't come up until page 7 when Menand mentions,

" the system has become too big and too heterogeneous to work equally well for all who are in it. "

  This reminded me of one day in my biomaterials class when we had an open discussion about the educational system. We were given the prompt of if we could change the system in any way or form, how would we. One of the most unique ways that we talked about was a class where we had the option of how we wanted to learn the class. For a single class you could pick how you wanted to hear the material: in a lecture, through a lab, or a hands on activity. Of course some classes would be harder to offer in a lab version, yet the overall concensus was that everybody learns different and confining someone to a particular learning modality isn't the best. We also agreed that college should decrease its focus on grades and try to make majors and minors with more interdisciplinary with concentrations.
 Some schools are already trying to change how the entire concept of the classroom experience. Our professor mentioned how our biotransport class next semester may be taught in one of these new learning styles. The professor would post the lecture online the night before and it would be the students job to listen and take notes. This way, class would be more of a review session of any questions we had about the lecture and homework problems. I am hesitant, yet very intrigued about how this class will be next year.
  Nevertheless, I highly believe that the educational system should be changed. Yet, it is also my responsibility to keep up to date with the current system until it is finally changed. I know for myself, I had a difficult time learning to read. My mother made me switch schools because my first grade teacher was teaching whole words instead of phonetics. It was her first year teaching school, yet there are several children like myself who may learn differently yet do not have parents as active enough to make sure they get the help they need. Teaching is a very difficult profession and in some instances it ends up in babysitting the child for six hours a day. I only hope that education eventually gets the attention it needs.

Let Them Eat Cupcakes

 This weekend I celebrated Thanksgiving with my bridge class. Bridge is a transition program for incoming first years at the University majoring in STEM fields. It was an intense 6 week program where I took calculus 1, STS ("english" for engineers), and chemistry 1 lab. Nevertheless, each Thanksgiving we have a potluck where we all just sit around and think about the good old days of first year. For some odd reason, the whole concept of if you want to eat, you have to bring something besides an appetite has not yet been understood by everybody.. This time for the potluck, I decided to make cupcakes. However, these were no ordinary cupcakes. These cupcakes were homemade, not from a box, made from scratch red velvet cupcakes died orange for Thanksgiving. They were decorated with a homemade cream cheese frosting that has been known to make people's jaws drop at first taste. 
  Now, its been a while since I've actually been able to bake. I think the pressure of doing well this semester in order to get an internship has been a constant buoy in the back of my mind. I've changed a lot of things since last semester in order to achieve this, "academic bliss" that people seem to have. Even though I've changed things, like not going out to parties as much and going to office hours sometimes it feels as though I've lost a little part of me. My friends say they don't see me as much because I'm never home or at a meeting someplace. Even my roommates would text me asking if I was still alive because they hadn't seen me. I thought maybe I had changed into this out of control always doing schoolwork monster type of a person.   That I had become, "that person"  who did homework on Fridays when I had no class on
Fridays. 
  Yet as I continued to ponder this theory, I started to realize that even though I had changed my study and work habits that I was still the same person. I still make the best homemade cupcakes around these parts of Charlottesville and I know how to start a good laugh. Even though its been a couple months since I've baked, I still know how to bake. I used to think that after taking this class that I would be this completely changed person from head to toe. I would be all about academics an nothing else. Yet I'm still me at the very end of the day no matter if I've had 2 or 10 hours of sleep that night. My work habits may have changed, but hopefully so will my grades as well.

So all in all, Let them eat cupcakes

Television at its Best

  As one of my study breaks today, I decided to watch some television. Normally I will watch Food Network and pray that an episode of Cupcake Wars or Paula Deen is on. However today I decided to feed my inner child and watch some cartoons. Spongebob bores me so all that was left was Avatar: the last Air Bender or Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. I chose Ned's Declassified thinking maybe I might learn something that I could apply to my overall college experience. The episode was pretty boring honestly. Ned's Declassified is about the main character named Ned Bigby and his overall experience in middle school. He has two friends, one named Cookie - I don't know his real name- and the other is named Mosley. Ned is like your average middle school student, Cookie is the extreme nerd of the bunch, and Mosley is the athletic all-around girl. On the show, they encounter cliche scenarios from when you have a crush on someone, to cliques, to bullies.

 The episode that I watched dealt with popularity and teachers. On the popularity part I zoned out a bit, yet I put forth some interest in the teacher portion. Ned and the gang moved up another grade so they were nervous about their new teachers. Mosley especially was nervous about one particular teacher because she had heard many rumors about how mean she was. On the other hand, the teacher had heard several rumors about how smart Mosley was and the fact that she was very gifted in everything she does. So both the teacher and Mosley came into the class with their preconceived notions about the other person and it was a disaster. Each person ended up disliking the other, when they knew nothing about each other. However, in the end they finally addressed what they had heard about the other person and they resolved everything.
  Now, I know the show is cheesy yet it had a good message about pre-judging people. I know sometimes I put my teachers in a box as if that is all they are capable of doing, is solely teaching. Its like when you first saw your high school teacher out at the mall. You didn't really want to say hello to them, yet your parents were always the first to point out, "Oh, isn't that...." My mother was a master at doing this to me and then I'd awkwardly stand and listen to my mother and my teacher converse. Why do we put teachers in these boxes? If we have put teachers in boxes, I'm sure that they have thought the same thing about us students. Its not like we mean to do this, but if everyone says Professor Brown is mean then most likely we will assume he/she is without forming an opinion for ourselves. Keeping an open mindset has been a juggle for me to keep while deciding on which classes to take. Course forum gives a pretty good description of professors, yet I need to make my own opinions as well. If only there was an individualized course forum on life would things be different.

I'm just saying, YOU can do better

  Something that I can improve on in my class is spending more time in my classes that I care least about. For instance, my biomaterials class I do not mind spending hours looking up relevant information for my class. I actually enjoy the idea of being a detective and trying to find what's the newest improvement for guglielmi detachable coil (GDC) therapy. Yet, for my structure and defects class, I have a hard time giving my undivided full attention for the 75 minute class. I do take notes, but I sometimes feel as though I am physically in the class but not mentally.
  With that stated, I really need to do better for this class. My first test grade wasn't so well but I have another test coming up this week and I pray that I do a lot better this time around. In class we talked a lot about editing and revising which is probably what I'll do to help prepare for this test in addition to making a giant study guide. I just hope the study guide is enough to last me through this exam and some of the final as well. Along with that I want to really engage myself not only in the class, but in the material as well. This can extend to finding and making friends in the class to go over the material with. I already do this is some of my classes, yet it is mostly about things that pertain to homework. If I try to open up the avenue to include basic studying as well then maybe everything should be okay.
  Another thing that I can improve on in my classes is doodling. When I get bored or uninterested in any of my classes, I tend to doodle. I look for an object or something interesting and I begin drawing away like I'm Pablo Picasso. In almost every corner or half page of my notebooks, I find some ornate pattern or a random diagram of a hand. I really need to work on finding some way to stay interested, but I almost feel as though I'm torn between the better of two evils- sleeping in class or drawing. On another note, I've actually become pretty good at drawing. Maybe I should try to take an art class next semester so I can rid myself of any desire to draw during class? I do have one more HSS elective class so maybe that will be my stress reliever class to all of my other classes next semester. Who would've thought a mere question of what can you improve on would lead to all of these suggestions. One more step in the right direction, I do believe so.

Estoy cansada, y tu?

" Hey"
" Oh hey [insert name] "
" How are you? "
" I'm doing okay, how are you?"
" Tired "

   I encounter this exact conversation at least 3 times a week while I'm on grounds. If only I got paid for responding in the same monotonous, blah voice would all my worries be gone. Well not all of my worries, but anything relating to money would be. 
   I realize that with this being my third year, it is often considered the most difficult in a typical college experience. I'm taking a lighter load this semester which counteracts the difficulty level somewhat. Nevertheless, it appears that each year I get older my typical night of staying up gets later and later. First year, going to bed at 1 am was late and now 3 am is late. I know that most of this is due to the combination of getting older, knowing more people, and doing more extracurriculars around grounds; which thus, leads to why going to bed before 1 am became one of my goals for this semester. Early in the semester our professor suggested we try studying before our classes if we have later classes on our schedule. I started doing this in September and it really worked. It cut back on my studying time after classes. In addition, it gave me a reason to go to bed early because I knew I would still get the homework/studying done in the morning. Now in November, I am still able to wake up before my classes to start studying. However, the notion of waking up early is starting to really hit me. First off, I am nowhere near a morning person. So, I do not mind staying up late to sleep in in the morning. The only bad thing now is that my body is programmed to wake up between 9 and 10 am despite what time I go to bed. Earlier this week, I was in bed by 1 am and I woke up at 8, 8:30, 9, and 9:30 am. I do not know if I was more upset that my body wouldn't let me sleep in until 10am or that with the extra sleep I made myself late to my first class. 
    Hopefully this attempt to get into bed before 1 am will eventually come second nature by the end of this semester. After picking my classes for next semester it seems as though I will have to get this going to bed at a decent hour in order with a 9 am three times a week.. If not, I may be setting myself up for the mother of all messes.
   

Can I Get a TOOO -HYPPEE?

     This is the chant that I heard all weekend at the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) conference this weekend. The mission of NSBE is to, increase the number of culturally responsible black engineers, who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact the community. While the mission statement may sound a bit cliche and drawn out, I believe that NSBE’s purpose is to build leaders. NSBE is the largest student run organization in the United States and therefore it is literally an organization run by we the students. I joined NSBE my first year because my peer advisor was on the executive board and dragged me to the meetings. Having free food at the meetings was plus, yet there was something that NSBE offered that kept me coming back for more. At the time, I think it was the family aspect of seeing other people my race in my major that first got me hooked.

    After attending this conference, I've begun to see that’s what’s started my interest in NSBE, but now it has changed to making a difference not only at UVA, but in the world. In NSBE I have a sense of power and drive to change things around me. I was secretary last year and this year I am programs chair. Next year, I plan to run for president or a regional position because I want to make a difference to those around me. In October, I was able to take 7 kids that we tutor/mentor to a UVA football game. Honestly, I could have emailed the appropriate people to make arrangements to receive free tickets without having a position in NSBE. Yet it wasn't until NSBE that I learned if I want to change something than I can. It is completely up to me to do something about it instead of having a woe is me party with my friends.

    A speaker at the conference told a story about a pregnant dog that had its hind legs amputated. The mother dog was not given any sort of wheelchair so she would drag her body using her front two legs. Now when the dog had her puppies they were all born without any abnormalities. However, the dog’s owner started to notice that all of the puppies would walk using only their two front legs because that is what they saw their mother doing. This story really hit me, not only because I love dogs, but how people tend to act like this every day. We get stuck in this fixed mindset that what we see is how we should act or otherwise learn to accept as law. I know I tend to speak a lot about changing my mindset, but being an engineer a fixed mindset is all that I know. Every action requires an equal and opposite reaction. What must come up must come down. Bragg’s Law is 2dsin(θ)=nλ. Things like these never change and there are pages of proofs to explain them in detail. I’m getting better at keeping an open mindset within my major, but being a realist doesn't always allow me to see the silver lining with ease. NSBE is one avenue that has been able to help me to not only think outside the box, but get rid of the entire concept of a box whatsoever. Now with NSBE, I have not figured out what is the exact reason that I have such a burning passion and drive, but I know it exists. I just hope with my future job I have this same passion that pours out as my passion for NSBE is evident in this blog.

Treat or Trick?

  " An the 5 victims for today's discussion are.."

    This is the dreaded sentence that I hear every Monday and Wednesday during my biomaterials class. Instead of having a normal class of lectures, homework, and tests with long walks on the beach, this class is far from ordinary. This class has a set up similar to a medical school class. The professor emails the class a case study which includes an small overview of the patient history, what happened to the patient, and what the doctors did to fix him/her. We the students are required to find all of the rest of the information to fill in the blanks. Yet, you never know when you are going to to get called on to speak about the topic for the week. So you always should be prepared in case your name is called. Luckily each person only has to be a victim twice during the semester.
    For this week's topic, a guy came into the hospital with shortness of breath and they figured out he had an MI (myocardial infarction/heart attack.) Instead of doing a bypass surgery where they take out a blood vessel in the leg and attach it to the heart to make a new way for the blood to flow; they decided to do an angioplasty instead which involves using a catheter and forcing the blood vessel back open again. At first I dreaded spending countless hours looking up information to discuss in class. I thought my teacher was expecting too much out of us because we aren't experts on the material, nor do we have any form of degree in his field yet. I kept wondering why can't he be a normal professor and teach this class the same way he taught cellular and molecular biology. All the time I would wait for someone to bring up school so I could rant about this professor. 
   However, as soon as I stopped dwelling on the bad things about the class, I started to see the good things. I started to realize that even though I kept telling myself I dreaded the class, I actually enjoyed it a lot. I was/am learning so much that I would call my mother who is a nurse and discuss with her the topic before each class. Often, I would be the one leading the discussions and probing her brain about other possible drugs to use for drug-eluting stents. Changing my mindset has helped me so much especially for this class. With this continuous task of changing my mindset, I've been able to change my major as well. After thinking about what I really want to do in life, I changed my major from Nanomedicine Engineering to Materials Science Engineering. I was a little hesitant at first, but now I am completely content with my decision. All of my prerequisites transfer to this major, and I just have to catch up on my materials science classes. I received a few, "OMG are you serious Karis?" from my peers. However, one close friend of mine said she was really excited that I decided to change my major. I myself was surprised to hear a positive remark from any of my engineering friends. Yet, she stated how she knows I can't stand chemistry and I would still need to take physical chemistry and organic chemistry 2 in order to satisfy my major. Her comment supported my decision to switch majors and to take another step towards achieving that growth mindset. 

Can You Hear Me Now? .... Good

  One of my goals is to keep my phone on silent while I do homework. Now, doing this eight years ago would have been easy as pie. Actually it would have been even easier than pie, even though I do not understand how easy as pie is even an analogy when making a pie is quite tedious..Regardless, I think yall understand how keeping a phone on silent while doing one's homework is a lot harder than one can imagine. 

  I waited a long and difficult hour an a half before I was able frantically undo the pass-code to unlock my phone. To my avail, I only had 1 text message and that was from my mother. Somehow she still manages to double text me the same message. I don't understand how I can be so attached to a piece of plastic and metal with a glass screen. Hopefully it gets easier not looking at my phone, but it still takes time getting used to not having the phone attached to my ear or fingertips at all times. Its amazing how so dependent I have become on social media avenues. 

   Even though I somewhat question my choice to make this one of my goals, I believe it is a necessary one. One day earlier this semester, I met with one of my friends Vicky to study at the library. She is only a first year and I have been trying to guide/mold her so she can seize every opportunity while at this University without having to worry about grades. Normally when we study together I take her phone away because she is always texting or telling me about another guy that she met on grounds. Most of the time at the library she waits in silence like a lion watching for its prey. Searching all around her, waiting for the right opportunity for her prey, me, to get up so she can pounce and take back her phone. I often laugh at how ridiculous she acts when she doesn't have her phone. She complains half the time, telling me I'm being mean and she can study and have her phone at the same time. However, within 30 minutes in she has completely forgotten about her phone and is busy doing her work. Then the tables turned when she grabbed my phone and proceeded to do exactly what I had done to her - taking my phone while I worked on homework. I was a mere image of Vicky, squirming around in my chair, waiting to hear the ever so faint bing that I had received a text message. Hopefully after this semester I will be less likely to be a fish out of water with a phone on silent.

Office Hours Part Two

  The goal for this week was to attend at least one session of office hours. Lucky for me I was able to go to almost each and every class that offered office hours this week. However, the slight unlikely part was that it was all due to the mass amount of homework that was due. Nevertheless, my office hours experience was actually tolerable than I thought. I went to office hours for both of my materials science and engineering office hours. The first was for my electrical, magnetic, and optical properties class. Instead of making an appointment, I merely just walked in and asked him for more details about how to approach the problem set.  He was very easy to talk to and the one-on-one attention was something that I wasn't expecting from him.
   Yet, the office hours for my structure and defects class was a completely different situation. I actually had to go twice because the homework took so long to finish even with my study group of six people. The first session of office hours consisted online and boy oh boy was that an experience to never forget. Our teacher was expecting several people to attend office hours, so he decided to have them online instead. It was very confusing at first trying to keep up with what was going on. He was sharing his screen so I just saw him scribbling information down and I was trying to keep up with what was going on. To my avail, there was no audio and it wasn't until 30 minutes into the session did he realize from the group chat that we could not hear him. Instead of stopping and trying to fix the software, he kept on going and wished us the best as he kept writing. It took me a lot longer than I expected to decode everything he had been typing. One of the odd things about office hours was that only three people including myself logged onto the office hour session.
   The second session of office hours consisted of a small classroom with most of my peers and I sitting on the floor. For a second it seemed like my peers and I were having story time with the professor as he enlightened us on the good and evils of the world. Yet I was surprisingly amazed at how much more information I was able to obtain in the group setting. All in all, my office hours experience wasn't as horrible as I thought it was. I was able to get the needed help with my homework. Yet, I think it will take a bit more work before I feel completely comfortable approaching my teachers. Hopefully, this is just the first of many more experiences to come.

Time For Sale

  The words, "Time for Sale," is something you will probably never see no matter where you are at in life. Time is something people are always searching for or running out of. If time and money grew on trees then all of the world's problems would be solved. Everybody would be less stressed and we would spend forever basking in paradise. However, there is only one problem with this concept and that is reality. Reality always seems to disrupt any source of fun or time which appears free at the moment.
    Sometimes I feel as though I need to stop time in order to accomplish all of the items that I need to get done. This upcoming week I have two large homework assignments due Thursday, a gospel choir concert on Friday, and an event for the National Society for Black Engineers (NSBE) at VCU on Saturday. Then, the week after that I have a weekend conference in Norfolk, VA. Time Management, Time Management, Time Management is all that has been popping into my head every time I think about what I need to do to prepare for this upcoming week. I keep telling myself that this is just a week, its not that serious but in the back of my mind I'm dreading the upcoming weeks. However, my planner has been able to save me through times like these and many others. Even though I can visually see it, actually doing everything written in it is another story. One of the problems I'm working on is  following through with what I plan out to do. I could write my whole day down from waking up to going to bed. However, the follow through is what seems to be the hardest part right now. Actions speak louder than words...Hopefully, I can start doing more actions this time around to accomplish all of my set goals.
  The way I plan on doing this is by finding the will power inside of myself to power through. Placing sticky notes in my planner has been helping thus far. The bright colors draw my eye to what I need to be working on and they get annoying when I keep having to move them out of the way to write down more information in my planner. Honestly I just need to put on my big girl panties and do what I need to do.

Ready, Set, Office Hours

    Office hours has to be one of my most dreaded things as a college student. The idea of entering a room where you stand face to face with the person who determines your fate is mind boggling for me. . 
    For myself, office hours consists of me attempting to conjure some way of getting to know my professor. I've heard tons of stories of people who have become great friends with their professors. One of my friends has even been to her professor's house for dinner and she even babysits her children from time to time. At first I thought it was too close for comfort. However, after thinking about it more I would do the exact same thing if I was in her shoes. Nevertheless, I had to come back to reality and realize that I am not my friend yet, I can get there one day.
     One of the major problems I have with office hours is that I feel as though I don't have anything "smart enough" to say or ask. Especially in my calculus office hours, I would feel as though my question was very trivial to the professor. He would answer my question as though it was matter of fact when in reality, it caused me an hour to work on. After I had my question answered, there would be that awkward silence where we are both anticipating the other person to say something. I think the idea of trying to prove myself to the professor is what keeps me from going to office hours as much. It's like I'm letting my one time experience of meeting him decide if he wants to pass or fail me. In addition, it seems as though professors love to look up how you're doing in the class when you go to visit them. In most cases I am not doing as superior as I would like to and it just makes me feel worse about going to see them a second time.
     Overall, I do not go to office hours like I should, however, it has become one of my top goals for this semester. Thanks to Dweck, I've been able to have more of an open mind towards office hours. However, it's still taking time for me to feel completely comfortable with carrying on a conversation with my professors. I have to constantly remind myself that learning is a continuous process and one encounter with my teacher does not define me as a student. 

La Vida de Mi

    Hello all, my name is Karis and I am a third year, engineering major at my University. Even though one rarely hears African-American, female, and engineering all in the same sentence, we do exist. I grew up loving school and everything about it. I remember gliding through summer workbooks to the extent where my mother started buying me three and four workbooks to work on at one time. Yet, the only subject that I dreaded working on was English. Even now, it takes me longer than most people to write a mere 2 page paper. However, my major allows me to exchange writing papers with problem sets which I happily enjoy. I am a Materials Science Engineering major with a biomedical engineering minor. Now that most of my prerequisites are finished, I am taking two materials science classes, biomaterials, and EDIS. It is a somewhat lighter schedule, but my materials classes are very demanding and I need a high GPA if I plan on getting an internship this summer. 
            I decided to take EDIS 2890 as a way to learn more about myself and how I study. I would spend hours studying, however my test grades showed as if I did not study at all. From this class, I hope to gain efficient study skills as well as a new perspective on school. Spring of 2012, I received a letter from my Dean that I was put on academic probation. My parents suggested that I take a semester off to get my thoughts straight. Both of my parents were put on academic probation during their college years and thus it seemed only customary for me to do the same. Nevertheless, I chose to persevere and endure the challenge to bring up my GPA. I was able to do just that, and I want to continue my voyage towards success not only in college, but life as well. I am working on bringing up my GPA by putting more effort in my classes and learning better time management skills especially when it comes to balancing schoolwork with my extracurricular activities.