Reflection on Strategies for Success in College and Life - Essay Example

Reflection on Strategies for Success in College and Life Being a college I have learned several things through my past mistakes that when implemented could lead to a successful college and future life. For instance, I have learned that accepting personal responsibility is a form of motivation that enables college students to work hard in various activities, hence attain good grades in class work, and still perform well in their extra curriculum activities. More importantly, I have learned that self-respect is important for success in not only college but also in the future life. Moreover, I have learned several aspects about emotional intelligence, self-management and self-starting that are useful for success in college life. This paper will reflect on various strategies for success in college life that I have learned by taking in to account my past mistakes and assessment of my current situation. To start with, personal responsibilities form the basic drive for carrying out the daily activities in our life. It is through having personal responsibilities that college students recognize the importance of accomplishing various tasks so as not to be seen as ‘failures’. On this note, I have realized that I am not good at carrying out my personal responsibilities in college hence recording performance in various areas including class work. In college life, personal responsibilities include the duties that students are required to attend to daily that have an ultimate aim of producing well trained and qualified students to the society. For example, it is a personal responsibility for college students to wake up early in the morning and attend all classes as required. Because handling personal responsibilities is challenging, this makes life to be interesting since people live to solve different challenges every day. Therefore, I have decided to improve on this area so that I can be able to handle different challenges in my college and future life. Secondly, I have learned that self-management skills are important for successful college life. This is because through self-management, students can manage to handle the relevant responsibilities more intelligently and hence attain good results in different activities. In addition, proper self-management skills enable college students to earn self-respect from other colleagues and tutors too because it is possible to accomplish the assigned duties with ease. Further, college students are able to live up to their promise through proper self-management skills because they can accomplish the promises given to other people. On this note, it is important to point that I once lost my self-respect due to the lack of proper self-management skills when I failed my physics exams despite promising the teacher that I will work hard. This is because I did not work hard in managing my studies well since I thought the class was simple and that it would be more of fun than hard work. As a result, I have failed the physics class for three times something that is not attractive since other classmates have proceeded to advanced levels. In order to pass the physics exam, I have decided to improve my self-management skills and in particular by going to the class early so that I can sit in front closer to the teacher, take class notes, and pay more attention to the teacher. This way, I will be able to improve my future performance even in other subjects. Of more importance, college students should consider developing emotional intelligence in order to have successful college and future life. This is because human beings living in any society have to interact positively to carry out meaningful activities. Emotional intelligence can be achieved through social necessities that are described by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where according to the theory, successful people who attain the ultimate level of needs have to rely on the community for their success. Therefore, college students with good relations with other people are able to succeed on various activities that require support from other people. For example, people with good relations with other society members can easily mobilize the community to carry out social responsibility activities like cleaning of the environment. On this note, I have learned that I should improve my emotional intelligence so that I can deal with other people more effectively to facilitate my success in various objectives. This is because I have little control over my anger when disappointed by others and this makes it hard for me to get along with others easily. In order to have good college life, I have decided to control by anger by discussing any problem that I have before making any judgment, thinking about the consequences of anger before acting and trying to keep off the problem for a while so that I can cool down my anger. This way I will be able to develop good emotional intelligence and interact with other people more freely and positively thereby facilitating my success in college and future life. Another key aspect to success that I have learned is the need to develop lifelong learning skills that enable people to be knowledgeable on various issues that are important for their success. Learning skills can be gained either through personal experiences or through experiences of other people. On this note, college students should learn from personal experiences that relate to successful college life. For instance, I have decided to set it as a rule to be actively participating in class work through discussion and answering questions. This is a risk because an instructor can always remember people who are active in class and can either like or hate them due to their contribution. However, it is evident that if positive culture of being active in class is adopted, students can be motivated to actively attend all the classes and further increase their understanding of the topics being taught. Since I always try to be an active participant in class, I have decided to up hold this culture because I believe it can contribute to my success in college life. College students can also learn from experiences of other people. For example, by emulating how other successful students organize and manage their studies, it is possible to attain good performance too. Similarly, emulation of other successful people in life improves the chances of success for college students in both college and in future life. I have always learned to ask questions to other people with similar experiences to those I come across to improve my performance in the same activities. Therefore, adopting lifelong learning skills is a good strategy for success in college and future life. Lastly, I have learned that being a self-starter and employing self-motivational tactics is essential for successful college and future life. This is because being a college student other people are less interested in giving you instruction on what to do because they believe a college student should be mature enough to decide on what to do. In addition, it is only possible for students to perform well in class and extra curriculum activities if they have personal motivation and are able to carry out the activities without being reprimanded to carry out the activities. On this note, I have always attended all my classes as duty heeding to the advice of my father. In addition, I try to do my best in classes so that I can get good grades even if I do not always score the best grades since I have no control over the grades to attain. However, it is important to note that the culture of having self-motivation to carry out different activities is essential for successful college and future life. This is because once a person has developed self-motivation and self-starting as a culture in their college life, the same culture is replicated in their future life thereby facilitating their future success in life after college. In conclusion, I have learned several things from my personal experiences that are essential for success in college and future life. For instance, I have learned that self-respect and personal initiatives are key elements for my successful college education. This is because with self-respect, I can value my college work and give it the necessary attention thereby improving my performance. In addition, personal initiative will enable me to put extra effort in my work that ultimately leads to better performance in college life. Of more significance is that I have learned that accepting personal responsibilities place challenges to people that are important to encourage hard work. Therefore, I have decided to accept my full responsibilities as a college student in order to be successful in my college and future life. Read More