From my experience, high school is about preparing students for college and other types of further education. Teachers were constantly telling me college is much harder than high school. We were given work that was supposed to prepare us for the college experience, but did it really help?

First, I want to talk about what I think schools do right when preparing students for college. I feel that the homework we got in high school actually helped, even though I hated doing it.

I think that homework teaches a student to work independently. When kids have to do homework they’re on their own, it teaches them how to be independent. It allows students to do their work and problem solve by themselves, without the assistance of a teacher or other students. I felt that this was very beneficial, since you have a ton of independence in college and you have to learn how to manage it. For me, homework started the process of working independently.

Another thing I think high school helped me with is time management. In high school, you have to develop time management skills. Since you get new assignments every day in high school, you have to learn to manage it. From my experience in high school I had to learn time management, otherwise I would fall far behind on homework and other assignments. I believe that learning to overcome this is widely important. For me time management is a big part of college and I’m glad that I started to learn these skills in high school.

For me, the problem in high school is that many students learn different ways. It felt like high school was geared towards individuals that were able to learn in a classroom setting. For me, a classroom setting is very hard to learn from. I found sitting in a classroom was very disengaging, and that I needed to be more involved to learn. I needed something more hands on to learn.

I think this is where high school is very flawed. I think that high school needs to focus more on how students learn. Just because a student fails an assignment doesn’t mean that they aren’t trying. Teachers need to learn and understand the needs of their students. Everyone learns differently, and I feel I would have done much better in high school if teachers tried to adapt more to the students needs.

Overall, I think high schools can do much better when it comes to adapting to students needs. I feel that they should learn about student learning habits and recommend classes to take based on their way of learning.

I just want to start by saying that my college experience so far has been good over. I enjoy most of my classes and my work has been manageable. However, my opinions on PSU have definitely changed throughout my time here.

When I first came to PSU I had no clue what to expect. Obviously you hear stories from your parents and others about college. Even with these stories, I was still kind of nervous and wasn’t sure what the future would hold.

Now that were about a month into classes, there are some things that I really enjoy about the school and some things I would change.

One thing that I love about this school is the student body. Everyone here is super nice. Whoever you pass people will always say hi to you. Connecticut, where I’m from, I’ve had a much different experience. It’s a little more unusual for someone to randomly say hi to you. In New Hampshire there seems to be a great deal of hospitality. This really makes the college experience much better. Everywhere you go you always feel welcome, and everyone treats you as a friend even if you have never met them before.

The one thing that I have a complaint about is that we are not allowed to be in dorms where you don’t live. I understand that this is a step that the school is making to help avoid the spread of COVID 19. What I feel the school should do is give people something that indicates that they tested negative. The school gives us wristbands to confirm that we have been tested. I think they should do the same for everyone who tests negative. This way people are able to go into other dorms with their friends. This is the only complaint I have so far, and this will become worse once it starts to snow. Soon there will be changes in weather that makes it so we can’t go outside as often. We will be restricted more to our own dorms and will see people in other dorms less often.

Overall, my college experience has been very good despite my complaint. I feel that our school is doing a good job dealing with COVID, and our numbers show it.

Feel fee to leave a comment about your college experiences so far in the comments below.

Sources: https://api.creativecommons.engineering/v1/thumbs/d7942b81-3987-4c4d-b086-5e7c86ceb51a

Procrastination has always been something that I’ve struggled with. Ever since I was little, I can remember pushing off assignments as much as I could.

This was always a problem. I remember when I was a junior in high school, I had a 10 page research paper that my history teacher had assigned. My paper was on the prohibition of alcohol in the United States in the 20th century. We were required to write 100 notecards worth of information based on our topic. Our teacher had us do this so we could organize the information we gathered on our topic better. I can remember the night before the notecards were due, I still had quite a few left. Our teacher had recommended we do 5 notecards a night in order to keep up, but of course I didn’t listen. I had to end up doing around 30 notecards in one night, which definitely took me into the early our of the morning to finish.

When it was time to write the paper, I found myself in the same situation. The night before it was due, I had around 4 pages left to write. Even with the amount of time I had to do it, which was weeks, I found myself in this situation again. I also procrastinated the last day, I didn’t start writing until 5 P.M. or so. Once I was finally done, with no more edits or corrections to make, it was 2:30 in the morning. I only slept 3 and 1/2 hours because I had to wake up at 6 for school.

The next day was tough. Going to school all day with very little sleep was definitely not easy. From this day forward I promised myself that I would work on procrastination. I knew that if this continued it would be a huge problem down the road. To this day it is still problem but it isn’t as problematic as before. I still wait to do assignments, but usually I can get the assignment done with time to spare.

The biggest thing that helped me was writing out my schedule for the week. I wrote down all of the due dates for my assignments and how long I should work on them each day. This way I don’t have an excuse not to do my work, since it is all planned out day by day and is very manageable. I get the work done that needs to be done and it saves me from saving all of my work until the last minute.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ” ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors (may act without thinking about what the result will be), or be overly active.” This is something that I struggle with and I want to share my experiences.

When I was in the eighth grade I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). In my case I am only have slight attention issues, no hyperactivity. I am going to tell some of my experiences dealing with this issue and maybe help some people who fee they are in a similar situation.

In middle school, before I was diagnosed with ADHD, I was having a more difficult time in school than most other kids. I would always get called out is class for not paying attention from most of my teachers. I was never able to stay focused for a whole class period, and some of the teachers just made me feel like I wasn’t as smart as the other. Eventually, I started to go to my councilor to help me organize my schoolwork and make sure I was staying on task. I really appreciated this at the time because I was beginning to feel helpless as my grades were not improving. I was starting to improve slowly, but my councilor and my teachers could tell that there may be something else that is causing my inattentiveness.

I was then sent to the school psychologist. With the psychologist I began to take a series of tests, to see what part I was struggling with in the learning process.

My issue turned out to be a reading comprehension problem. I was having the most trouble retaining the information that I was reading or observing.

This happened over four years ago, but it still affects me today. I take medication, only when I feel it’s necessary, for school and work. Since I am very aware of this issue I am able to notice it quickly and I’m able to get on task quicker.

My way of coping with this can be very different from other. Not everyone deals with this the same way and everyone is in a different situation. So I am going to show some example of how to cope, and you can take whatever information you want from this. According to the CDC “Being healthy is important for all children and can be especially important for children with ADHD. In addition to behavioral therapy and medication, having a healthy lifestyle can make it easier for your child to deal with ADHD symptoms. Here are some healthy behaviors that may help:

• Developing healthy eating habits such as eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and choosing lean protein sources
• Participating in daily physical activity based on age
• Limiting the amount of daily screen time from TVs, computers, phones, and other electronics
• Getting the recommended amount of sleep each night based on age

This is my experience and some recommended ways of coping. Hopefully I am able to help someone or bring more awareness to this issue.

Sources: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/facts.html

In the past few years, skateboarding has become more and more popular all around the world. This has led to the opening of many different skate shops. Instead of having small, local skate shops there are big chains, such as Zumiez, that have a huge online store and hundreds of stores all across the globe. The big question is, who should you buy from? The local shop or the big chains?

Zumiez has made skateboarding much more mainstream. Since the style of skateboarding clothing is a big part of modern culture, Zumiez has taken advantage of this and sells everything skate related. They sell the skateboards along with the clothing and accessories. The company is very large, which makes it seem like the best option. Since their demand is very high, it makes their prices cheaper than most skate shops since they’re making much more money. It makes the local skate shops seem overpriced. You would probably wonder why anyone would pay more than they have to.

Local skate shops play a much bigger role than many people expect. Even though they’re slightly more expensive, your purchase has way more value in a local skate shop. Local skate shops will initiate the building of skateparks near you. They’ll also do things such as raise money to put lights at your local skatepark, so you can skate at night. Skate Shops will also hold events near you like skateboarding contests. Contests are a great way of getting your community together and it is a great way for the shop to raise money. 

What I want people to get out of this is to always buy local if possible. If you cannot afford it then that’s okay. Local skate shops are the ones responsible for pushing skateboarding near you. If you love your community and want to see your skate community grow then shop local as much as possible.