Inge Bells This Book Is Not Required - Essay Example

College experiences: Inge Bell’s ‘This Book is not required.’ College experiences: Inge Bell’s ‘This Book is not required.’ College years would have proved a nightmare especially when I would be cut from life in class and the broad range of elements that came with social settings and interactions at the education centers. Having to handle personal experiences and opportunities head on, seeing the need to have decent grades, having to govern myself with or without pressure, making the most out of instructors and professors, and cultivating a positive attitude towards writing would demand a survival manual. I found college as a dynamic social setting with people from all walks of life who held different values and perspectives regarding some elements in life. Intimate relationships in higher institutions are an order of the day. With space and freedom from parents, exploring my sexual orientations presented the truth of falling in and out of love. As a young underclassman, with a young, inexperienced, sensitive ego, making informed decisions when dealing with real-time issues was critical. The elderly generation was always in my case. With their amassed experiences, they know a lost youth when they see one. Back in their days, they knew where to find a good woman, not in the kitchen of course. They would cut between myths and realities. Things were never the same. Technology is a whole world different. My college life involved tackling my kind of generation myths. Inge Bell’s insights in ‘This Book is not Required’ fit in my experiences as an undergraduate, and offered a clear manual on how to reasonably make informed decisions in order to survive intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Bell offers an insight on how to lead a life that ensures intellectual survival. Securing a place in a college of choice takes hard work and discipline during the high school years. I wanted to achieve the most decent grades that would guarantee a place in the job market. The myths about college life are many, but Bell puts it better; college is fun, easy, safe, and good. With so much freedom in my hands, cultivating a culture of success would need a very informed approach in dealing with everyday experiences. Bell’s advice fit in my daily experiences inside the education center. He illuminates the need to appreciate the teacher students contradictions. This would shape my life in and outside the classroom. Looking at the teacher as a subject of the learning process did not turn me into a passive object. The teacher would be entirely informed about the subject topic, would want the learners to listen and pay attention, would structure the program to follow on behalf of the learners, but I always felt the need to go beyond the material offered and actively dug deeper knowledge to better myself. My intellectual success was shaped by the many elements that constitute the college environment. There are professors that I would look up to. The libraries offered a center of knowledge. Research and studies constituted methods of building on my knowledge. A clear understanding of the area of study would be critical in seeing me engage in constructive research. Bell underscores the role and implications of technology in learning and shaping one’s intellectual life. It has some positive aspects that would improve my performance in class and in the field, which is during research and the actual career path. Information technology as an undergraduate provided a platform for communication between professors, instructors, and I. The teachers would share information regarding the subject topics online and offer guidelines to learners without having to interact with face-to-face base. E learning was a reality thanks to technology advancement. In a society that is prone to such factors as the traffic on the roads, time and other resources that would have to be committed to traveling to those classes are channeled elsewhere. The most important aspect was acquiring knowledge online at my convenience. I would agree with Bell that technology has enabled us to connect with other learners at all time for daily interactions. I could exchange information with other learners regarding new developments in course materials, research, and other studies. However, Bell is keen to illuminate that technology has some negative elements that hamper intellectual development and survival. This was the case in the event of E learning which would stand between the one on one interaction between some of my professors and me. Some of my teachers would remain strangers for an entire course. There was no actual relationship with the professors. Technology in that sense does not empower the learning process in class. One critical experience in college is writing especially exams and related areas. Poor performance in exams as attributed to poor writing skills and strategies is a common experience. Bell’s advice and suggestions proved in handy in handling this kind of a challenge. Moreover, he shows how critical writing is in communicating our progress in a certain line of study. Sit-in exams come with panic especially when one is not adequately prepared. Tackling the questions and having one’s responses down in a form of writing would need confidence, good time management, and informed strategies. Take-away papers came with deadline issues for a vast majority of courses. An outline of the research paper, as advised by Bell, would proof useful in beating the deadline. The outline would provide a period for structuring thesis that fit with the research topic. I would find space for consulting instructors and teachers where help is needed. Writing a piece of an exam is not enough. I would drop marks due to misspellings and other mistakes that come with writing. Proofreading, loud reading, and working with college friends to read my paper would better my writing performance. With technology offering useful apps like Grammarly, incorporating them in identifying grammatical errors would proof useful. Intellectual survival was dependent on my attitude towards writing; a basic feature of the parameters used to establish our mastery of the subject topics. Communicating how I faired in my studies through writing was an inventible experience through my entire time in college. One experience that proved a nightmare in college was oral report presentations. The performance before the audience is rated, and that affects one’s overall score in the course at hand. Having the material and content to present is one thing, but putting it across orally is quite another. Stage fright at such a time was a common experience. It affects one’s flow of thoughts and ideas. Inge Bell knows better, and his suggestions offered hope to many of us as learners. PowerPoint presentations would need a skill to present in order to gun maximum points. Bell suggests a detailed outline in the form of handouts. They would make the presentation more lively and interesting as well as dynamic. However, that would not make a person less nervous. Bell reminds reminded me those simple aspects that would always work; deep slow breaths before kick starting, and a few seconds of self-collection for a better delivery. One difficult experience in college was asking for recommendations letter. They mean a lot to everyone especially for that need of an edge in the job market. Bell tips and experiences fit in my case. Working closely with my faculty would cut the hassle involved. I would incorporate oral and written requests that would offer some lead time to the particular referees. I would provide key points to consider, and a drafted personal statement. I found it appropriate to offer thank you notes as a strategy of getting a good recommendation letter. Such letters would provide extra confidence when interacting with my potential employers. Another element in college experiences is emotional survival. Intimate relationships shape up everyone’s life in college. Many people tend to explore their sexuality at this level. This is a center of freedom where people meet new persons with different perspectives. Finding a new soulmate is every freshman’s agenda. However, people come into college having had relationships in their recent past. Many experiences regret having had such relationships in the first place because they are forced to be loyal to their partners. They identify lost opportunities of getting more partners in the pool of freshmen and underclassmen in their immediate context. Freshmen jump into relationships anyway. Time and experiences offer a pile of breakups among many couples. This becomes a lesson to many of us. Bell identifies the group of learners who have regrets for having had haste in getting into relationships when they were freshmen. This was a story of my life. I was not informed, and I trusted strangers. I would have to cut the relationship short in future years. Like Bell would say, falling in and out of love turns out to a college life thing. Breakups are more of an order of college experiences. Emotional experiences in college come with such vices as rape. The suspects most of the time are familiar people. One would have to agree with Bell. The victims in college know a good proportion of rapists. This consequently results in a unique approach when the victim has to deal with such an issue. The majority of the victims never report these cases citing different reasons. Spiritual experiences in college prove meaningful to a good proportion of learners. Some have diverse backgrounds as far as religion is concerned. Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Buddhism, Judaism, and atheism are some of the religious perspectives common in many college settings. Bell looks at spirituality in a rather interesting way but still conforms to our experiences in our colleges. He sees it as an aspect that suggests living a life that pays attention to matters beyond such human aspects as psychology and philosophy. With Bell’s insights, I gave spirituality a new approach where I preferred to be open-minded and suppressed influences indoctrinated in me by family background. This is what Bell would identify as desocialization. I became conscious of the many aspects conditioned in me by my backgrounds and felt the need for searching inner freedom for myself. I would abandon religious beliefs and stick to those values that fit the situation. In a society, that has had difficult experiences with religion; some of my friends would opt for atheism that has no inclination to any religion. Many would exploit their freedom of expression to blame religion for such world crises like violence and terrorism. Bell’s insights and talking points fit right in my college experiences. They provided a platform that helped understand and deal with my experiences. His tips and advice prove critical for every learner who would want to fair well intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Annotated Bibliography Bell, Inge, John Gunderson, Terri Anderson, and Bernard McGrane. (2010). This Book is not Required. California: SAGE Publications, Inc. Inge Bell offers some clear, honest insights that would serve as a manual for college students as far as intellectual, emotional, and spiritual survival is concerned. Cutting across the many experiences that a college student would go through, he offers some advice on how to realize the best writing strategies, oral presentation skills, how to earn quality recommendation letters, and how to get a good internship. He illuminates the role of intimate relationships in colleges and finds touch with nature of such affairs that come with heartbreaks and regrets. He masterfully underscores that our spiritual inclinations have a place in our college life. Bell’s text is indispensable with its honest perspective of college life. Insights in this text would prove valuable for teachers, instructors, and learners who would want their college years to turn to a resourceful experience. Learners in high school would find this a helpful rehearsal for their life in colleges. Readers should find Bell’s style and approach as engaging and interesting. Bibliography Bell, Inge, John Gunderson, Terri Anderson, and Bernard McGrane. (2010). This Book is not Required. California: SAGE Publications, Inc. Read More