The Student Survival Guide - Essay Example

INTRODUCTION This document will serve as a Survival Guide” for the rest of my term and details the activities and action plans for the same. This document draws upon what I have learned so far in the course and applies them to a concrete and time bound plan for realizing those objectives. I have listed the five focus areas and detailed how I would go about in achieving the same. UPHOLDING ACADEMIC HONESTY Axia College strives to uphold academic honesty and values integrity above everything else. Towards this end, the college has formulated a comprehensive policy towards academic honesty and has a zero tolerance approach towards plagiarism. I have gone through the relevant policies on plagiarism and I strive to continually uphold them. I understand the consequences of the same. The action plan for this particular focus area would be to ensure that I use the academic resources judiciously and when working on my term papers and other hand in materials, I take care to cite all the sources appropriately and with due diligence done according to the source that I am citing. I would avoid plagiarism by relying on my research into the various topics of the term papers and ensuring that my hand in materials is checked for others work. I plan to use plagiarism detecting software to ensure that my work is original. SETTING AND ACHIEVING GOALS Goal setting and realizing the same is one of the most important objectives of any educational program and Axia’s degree course is geared towards providing the students the kind of start they need to compete in the marketplace for jobs. Thus, this forms a primary focus area for me. Towards this, I plan to formulate goals early on in my semester and draw up an action plan towards realizing them. My primary goals would be to secure a GPA of more than 3.0 out of 4.0 and this is the minimum target that I am looking for. If I have to realize this, I need to ensure that I get good grades in all the subjects that I take. I plan to focus more on the courses where I feel that I am lacking and use additional time to devote to the study of these courses. My secondary goals would be leverage on the degree that Axia provides as a stepping stone to the job market. I feel that there would be obstacles towards realizing my goals and these would relate to the constraints in time and resources that I would be willing to devote to the course. As David Allen (2001) points out, laying down the list of goals and drawing up an action plan is one of the first things to be done for “stress free productivity”. Thus, my action plan for the academic and non-academic (or short term and long term) goals would consist of judicious use of my time, working smart, covering up the areas where I may come up short and seeking support from my tutors for these areas. MANAGING TIME WISELY As I am a working professional, I need to ensure that I divide my time wisely between my work, family and school. I cannot afford to skip one for the other too many times. My approach to this would be to study after school hours at home and prioritize the courses that I need to move up the order to devote more time to them. Though this may seem obvious and inane, I want to make it a point not to miss too many classes because of work or family constraints. I believe that only by attending classes I would be in a position to understand the course material and my giving my undivided attention to the subject at hand, I would grasp the concepts. As far as possible, I would like to avoid wasting time on frivolous activities and pursuits that serve no purpose and detract from my overall objectives and goals that I have set for myself. These include spending too much time socializing after school hours. Though I would not avoid this entirely as this is an ideal opportunity to exchange notes and information, I would strive to keep it to the minimum wherever possible. FOSTERING READING COMPREHENSION AND RETENTION I believe that reading through the material and retention of the subject matter is of primary importance to me. Given the voluminous nature of the material that needs to be covered and the different kinds of topics to be covered, it is imperative that one should work smart. This means that reading smart by use of the SQ3R method that would involve Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review techniques that have been popularized by Francis Robinson (1970). This method has proved highly successful in the case of many students and I would definitely like to follow this method for my comprehension and retention strategies. One of the ways in which this method works best is if I pay close attention to what is being said in the class and jot down the notes for future reference, then I can optimize on the time that it would take to grasp new concepts. Though I would not be classified as a slow reader, it is nonetheless a fact that I need to brush up on my comprehension skills particularly when it comes to lengthy passages and complex subject matter. I overcome this by taking notes and jotting down the salient points of each topic to be studied. Using the SQ3R method and my classroom notes, I am confident that I would be able to do well in this focus area. APPLYING PERSONALITY AND LEARNING STYLES One of the facets of learning in the distance education mode is that one has to rely on one’s intuition and sense of native intelligence to navigate the learning process. By this, I mean that I have to develop each of my multiple intelligences, a concept developed by Gardner (1993) to denote the various kinds of intelligences that one possesses. This is like sports where each of the skill at work needs to be developed in conjunction with the rest. For instance, I may not have the requisite linguistic abilities to cope with the demands of the curriculum, but, I may have the logical skills to solve complex problems. Thus, it is more like I need to evolve each of my intelligences in tandem with the others and make myself a rounded personality. This is akin to a finished product that comes out and I like to compare myself to a raw material that needs to be molded and made into a marketable proposition. Though Axia’s degree program is not residential and hence one does not interact with other students more than what is required, there is still a need to identify with the others and relate to their personality types. There would be instances of group projects and assignments where this interaction is necessary. CONCLUSION I have summed up the action plan that I would need as part of the survival guide and I hope that this would serve as a reference for my term at Axia College. Apart from whatever has been written down in this survival guide, I believe that it is incumbent upon me to make the most of what Axia has to offer in terms of academic learning and the resources that are made available to the students as part of the course. Sources Allen, David. (2001). The Art of Stress Free Productivity. New York: Harper Collins. Robinson, Francis Pleasant. (1970). Effective Study. New York: Basic Books. Gardner, Howard. (1993). Multiple Intelligences. New York: Penguin. Read More