Unit 3 Reflection

Unit 3 Reflection Project

Rami Fayed, Anthony Cassera, Jack Durrani, Christine Allawh

Writing 105

10 December 2015
Powerpoint:  http://www.slideshare.net/RamiFayad

For our presentation, we chose a topic that we felt as freshmen would be beneficial for other newcomers here at Syracuse, or just any student that wants to succeed in general. The PowerPoint we’ve created contains five topics that will help guide any student into success. Our first topic is grade expectations. Grade rubrics are something very important to be familiar with for every class. Each professor will have their own grading criteria, and although your expectations for yourself may not be the highest, it is always important to be aware of the fact that your first semester grades act as a blueprint for the remainder of your college career.

Studying is a very important topic we felt was vital to discuss. Study routines are the first thing as a freshman, that students should create. Looking at your work and class schedules and trying to find time to study for each class will have a positive impact on your grades. Time management plays a big role in how productive of a student one will be. Again, looking at your schedules and allotting time for studying and other things like clubs, sports, and free time will help make your college experience a stress free one. It is very easy to lose track of time and get distracted, so being organized with your time will help you avoid sleep deprivation, late assignments and bad quality of work.

The topic mentioned in our presentation can be applied to any class that you take here at Syracuse is ‘writing tips’. Practically every class that a student takes here at S.U. requires students to do some type of writing. Whether it is a written lab report, a paper on art history, or just a simple homework assignment, writing is a necessary part of every college student’s life. Therefore, the topic of ‘writing tips’ in our presentation will be beneficial to all students. These tips will help improve overall rhetoric and writing techniques of students while helping them understand what is expected by teachers in a typical writing assignment and how to meet these expectations. Another topic we chose was ‘available resources’ that we chose mainly because Syracuse University’s wide variety of resources at hand that students should take advantage of. These available resources include, tutoring, interview practice, networking events, advising or counseling, and the writing center. All of these available resources can also serve a multitude of purposes from helping students adjust better to their new environment as well as helping students prepare for a job interview and even simply trying to achieve excellence in the classroom by getting instant feedback on all writing assignments from the writing center. All of these are such astounding tools that if students utilize correctly, they will benefit from and ultimately see great success.

The video we chose to present in our project reflects on the mindset most students have before entering college, and then how it changes once they are in college. It is a satirical short video that we feel many students can resonate with. An example from the video in which a majority of people said they find most accurate, is the comparison of a student’s phone call with his mother while him being in high school, compared to that same scenario while him being in college. In high school he doesn’t appreciate his mother’s phone call and argues with her. Whereas in the college scene he is significantly more loving and kind towards his mother and expressing sentiment to her. Overall the video showed how much student’s change in transitioning from high school to college.

We decided to present these topics in a PowerPoint style because we felt that a PowerPoint is a very direct and informative way to showcase our thoughts. We tried our best to make the PowerPoint as lively as we could, using the colors of Syracuse University in order to reach our target audience of incoming freshmen at Syracuse University. Our whole project is based on how you could be a successful student at Syracuse, so why not add in some flair and color to spice it up? Just like in Lucille McCarthy’s “A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing across the Curriculum,” we tried our best to create a presentation that new students can read through and use to their benefit.

When managing your time in college, we’ve found that it works best to complete assignments as early as possible to ensure that you have applicable time to complete the task to the best of your ability. We also found that at the beginning of every week you should make a schedule, or at least designate times each day in advance of when you are going to complete an assignment or prepare for an exam. This will help you stay organized which ultimately leads to success in academia. Schoolcouncilor.org preformed a study whose general consensus was that organized students are in fact more successful students. Start a habit of being organized to ensure optimal success in college.

Once you complete your work early, you allow yourself some much needed down time. College is a stressful environment, but staying active is one of the best ways to combat stress. One activity I am personally keen on is going to the Archbold Gym to workout. Studies have shown that staying active in college promotes higher test scores among students.(sparkpeople.com). Being active in college will not only make you feel better in college, but also look good too.

Another much needed activity proper time management allows for is sleep. Here in college no matter what everyone may tell you, they are sleep deprived. A recent study conducted by the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota concluded that over seventy percent of college student are sleep deprived, meaning they do not get the recommended eight hours of sleep a night. When you are sleep deprived your work is not your best and therefore you do not get the scores that you desire.

Earlier we explained why we included each topic in our presentation and how they’re supposed to help incoming freshmen adjust to college life and succeed in an environment much more fast-paced than they’re used to. We then gave an example of each topic, how it is beneficial, and the consequences of doing otherwise. With all of that completed, it is time to focus on the assignment itself. Not the presentation but the unit’s assignment and its relevance to what we’ve picked up in our writing discussions. Rewind three months ago to a quiet, awkward room in Huntington Hall which many feel was only put so far from most of the freshman dorms to keep them cold and unhappy during the winter. Inside the room are nervous freshmen afraid of being called upon so they won’t be the first person to break the silence. It was nearly impossible to get a definite seat for next class as there were no real desks or tables, just a mismatch of tables unevenly distributed in a room that can’t fit them. The most ironic thing about this scene might actually be the fact that we all walk by a much larger room with less people in it on our way down the hall to writing class each day. Back then we too were the anxious freshman who we look to help out with this presentation.

As an incoming freshman you tend to worry about a lot of things, but the topics we covered in the presentation are generally not what you think of when preparing for being independent. Especially if you’re planning on going away to a university very far from home you’re probably going to be more worried about the people you’ll meet, the friends you'll make, and if you’re roommate is going to be a total stickler. The difference between writing in college versus writing in high school never occurred to me. Instead of worrying about their social lives on their future campus freshmen should be informed that that’s only a small fraction of the entire college experience. We organized the PowerPoint to walk incoming freshmen through the process of which you should be preparing yourself throughout the semester to be on top of your game.

It all begins with you setting a goal or a structured idea of what you would like to see at the end of the semester. Once your grade expectations are set we thought studying tips were the next step in educating somebody on what they should expect from the courses they’re going to be taking. The transition from high school to college is a very confusing and stressful experience, and we all wish we could’ve gotten a little more guidance and help from kids who had just gone through it as well. That is why we now are helping out the grade below us. Our PowerPoint helps future Syracuse students avoid difficulties by informing them on the real things they should be stressing about. It isn’t the high school game anymore where you can contribute a small percent of your energy into schoolwork, not study, and do homework in class before the teacher checks. College life will swallow you whole if you retain that mindset still, and the shortened course length can really be tricky to students. Having a few months to do a whole year’s worth of learning for a subject is no easy task, and this is what makes unprepared freshmen feel lost and too far behind to catch up. Even when Thanksgiving break ended, there was no two or three-day intermission where classes gave us a break. No, you hit the ground running after breaks here at Syracuse and next to studying, time management is the key to remaining ahead.

College writing tips and available resources allowed students to know the raised expectations in writing assignments at the college level, and the facilities given to students to deal with those expectations. Revision is key, and making sure each paper is tweaked to perfection can save you a few points on each assignment. Do that with your homework and more points will add up. When you study you can go back repeatedly to anything you read that you didn't fully understand and earn those extra few questions on your next exam. Extra credit is also very prevalent in many college courses, so take advantage of each and every opportunity given to you to raise your grade at little cost. If you edit your papers, put more effort into homework, study more thoroughly, and complete all extra credits.  Your grade will skyrocket from what it would’ve been before if all the work is put in correctly. However, if I could just give one last piece of advice to any incoming freshman coming to Syracuse University, it’s that you need to take advantage of everything available to you to better yourself and become a better academic scholar.