FRESHMAN STUDIES: MY EXPERIENCE. Maria Prieto Morales

Hello. My name is Maria Prieto, and I am a

freshman at Virginia State University.

I am currently majoring it in political science, and I

hope to declare a minor in economics.

And I live in Alexandra, Virginia.

I've been living here for about three years, but I

am from Venezuela.

So one of the first lessons I remember, um from

the freshman studies class was learning about traditions at Virginia

State. And it was really interesting to find out that

we can't step on the Trojans head, because supposedly we

might not graduate on time.

But it's also helpful to know that we can walk

through that fountain right there in order to kind of

like a reverse the curse.

Um, I thought that was really interesting, and I I

was super excited to learn about these things on campus.

And I wish I could have a picture of myself

on campus, but I do not.

I hope that we will all go to camps in

spring, though.

So another thing about the classes that, um, Dr Roberts

and Dr Hobson made us talk a lot about ourselves

and like this activities that we had to turn in

and I found that really helpful because I feel like

not always.

We are put in a position that we just have

to speak about ourselves and what we like, what we

want. Um, and it's also something hard to figure out,

and I feel like I'm still figuring myself out.

But thanks to this class, I was able to at

least get some of my focus is and the activities

that help me to do this was, for example, the

an emotive video that I had to basically explain who

I am, where things I like to do, where things

I value the most.

And within those I talked about my family, um, in

my three siblings that are right here.

This is a screenshot of the video, and I found

it really helpful because I don't necessarily know how toe

introduce myself sometimes.

So I think that was that was really good to

figure out where things I like the most where I

think that probably the most, um, and that I want

people to know about me.

Another thing that I activity that we did recently was

a vision board, and I found that really inspiring just

because it realize that all these things I can accomplish

them. And even though they might seem far away or

they might seem like it takes, ah, lot of effort,

it does.

But it will pay off.

The effort will pay off.

So I found that very inspiring.

And now when I feel a little down or I

feel like I have too many things to do and

I'm overwhelmed, I go look at it and I like

This is what I want And this is what I'm

working for.

So I really appreciated that activity that we had to

dio. Another thing that I found helpful was learned about

note taking strategies and in the screen.

I put some notes that I take.

I take digital notes now, Um, and it just helps

me to lay out the themes in the topics, and

I usually use the mapping method.

We also learned about it in class, Um, but I

found that extremely useful, and now I feel like I'm

more organized when it comes to my notes, and that's

super important in order to like study for tests and

all these activities that we have to do in classes.

Another super important thing was time management, and I don't

think I realized how much I would need to learn

about this or how much I would need to learn

to organize myself.

I started working remotely when this mercy it when this

master started and I I found myself having little to

no time to do things.

So I had to really make a schedule every day,

and I decided to get an agenda.

And I write everything I have to get done in

a day and I kind of write a schedule for

the day.

And even though sometimes it might be a little hard

to complete, it will work the best in order to

do all the things I have to do.

And another thing was that our power document.

It really made me realize how much time like one

might spend on things that we don't need to spend

so much time like social media.

Our phones like watching TV and all this stuff.

Teamwork was super important in the class.

Um, it really I don't think I had as much

of, ah teamwork experience in high school.

I've always been very like a new individual person However,

I really enjoyed this opportunity to talk with my classmates,

especially since we're not in a face to face learning

environment. I found it extremely helpful.

I met a lot of nice people.

Now we have groups talk to each other about assignments,

and I found that like we created a community.

Another thing is that I've met a lot of students

in the honors program that aren't necessarily in my class.

But I also found that extremely helpful since I could

get an insight of what you know on campus will

be like what being in the program.

Really? It's like So, yeah, did this QE assessment?

I found out things about myself that I didn't necessarily

know. My dominant scores was about 30% and I found

out to be extremely high.

I've always thought of more like laid back type of

person, but I guess I'm not on Dwell.

What I want to my conclusion to be is that

this class really helped me figure out things in my

freshman year, and I feel like I now have a

lot of tools that I will be using not only

my freshman year, but throughout my college experience.

And I learned about B s you culture that I

didn't necessarily know before.

And I have so much bride for my school and

just tools to be successful and how to get involved

and just be there and and be successful in school.

Thank you.

FRESHMAN STUDIES: MY EXPERIENCE. Maria Prieto Morales

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