Service-Learning Wrap Up

Today was my last day at my service site. I really had a good experience serving as a mentor. I feel like I learned some people skills and hopefully was able to help out a kid while doing it. My mentee, Josh, and I were able to develop a deeper relationship than I expected at the beginning of the program. We became pretty good friends and I feel as though both us benefited because of this program. I was able to teach him some organization skills and helped him with his homework whenever he had any. I wish I could be a mentor next semester too but my schedule doesn’t permit it. Josh was a good kid and it was fun and rejuvenating to hang out in a middle school again. I had a good experience at Hand Middle School and feel as though I matured throughout the whole process.  

Capstone Personal Challenge

I fulfilled my personal challenges during one of the times I visited home. I got up in front of the congregation and read a few verses from the Bible. At my church we read three readings every service that somehow relate to the sermon that is about to be delivered. I told my mom to sign me up to be one of the readers when I came back to visit. This was a difficult task for me because I feel awkward getting up in front of my entire church and reading from the Bible. Luckily I didn’t stumble on words too badly and actually read it pretty decent. It felt good knowing that I can get up in front of a ton a people and not look like an idiot. Over the summer I plan on volunteering a few more Sundays to be a reader because it is good public speaking practice.

Capstone Conversation

To fulfill my Capstone Conversation requirement I went to hear Dr. Hickey speak. Dr. Hickey has a done a lot of incredible things in his lifetime hearing about his experiences. The message I really took away from listening to him speak was the importance of setting good goals. I now find myself setting goals and then creating action plans to execute what I set out to do. Dr. Hickey accomplished a lot of the things he did through good goal setting and by making plans that would help him reach his goals. I need to use these tools in my own life to maximize my potential success. Throughout my past I have been lazy and failed to plan and not participate in everything that I would have liked to. This has caused me to miss out on opportunities that I will not have again. If I can use better goal setting skills I will be able to experience more.

Capstone Social

For my Capstone Social event I went down to hot cookie Friday. I couldn’t pass up the chance to eat free cookies. I really enjoy eating cookies, especially freshly baked cookies. I got there and met some cool people, ate some pretty good cookies. The cookies were very warm and I greatly enjoyed eating them. This was probably my favorite Capstone event because I got to eat some pretty good cookies. I could tell that everybody else seemed to be enjoying the cookies. Next semester the Capstone Social that I go to will definitely be Hot Cookie Friday because I get to eat some pretty good cookies. It would be nice if at every Capstone event they passed out freshly baked cookies, I think it would boost attendance. Overall, I had a good time at Hot Cookie Friday eating freshly baked cookies and engaging in small talk with fellow scholars.

Capstone Cinema

The Capstone Cinema that I attended was the film Jesus Camp. This film was a documentary on a very controversial religious camp. In this camp, children are taught to praise God and Jesus. They do this in a very new age way of worshiping. Children are standing around with their arms raised up crying and doing a whole bunch of strange stuff. The image was a bit concerning. The camp looked like a young terrorist training camp except for the children were Christian. To me the whole camp was far too extreme for children and seemed cultish. Fortunately I was not the only person that thought these practices were too extreme. After this film was shown many people disapproved of its content and how the camp was run. This caused for the camp to close down and discontinue its highly controversial methods of getting kids to worship the Christian faith.

Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving plans were to go out to Colorado to visit my family out there. My uncle has a ranch out there and we all decided to go out there for Thanksgiving for a change. He lives way up in the mountains and is very secluded from civilization. It was really nice being able to hang out with the family and enjoy the scenery of Colorado. One bad thing about visiting there is that there is no cell phone service in the area or Internet. My great uncle doesn’t think it necessary to get Internet because he spends most of his time outside anyways. Luckily they have satellite TV so I didn’t have to miss any football. Fortunately I am in the airport right now where I do have Internet access and am writing my blogs, hopefully they won’t be counted as late. I really hope I can get back in time to watch the USC and Clemson game.

Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving plans were to go out to Colorado to visit my family out there. My uncle has a ranch out there and we all decided to go out there for Thanksgiving for a change. He lives way up in the mountains and is very secluded from civilization. It was really nice being able to hang out with the family and enjoy the scenery of Colorado. One bad thing about visiting there is that there is no cell phone service in the area or Internet. My great uncle doesn’t think it necessary to get Internet because he spends most of his time outside anyways. Luckily they have satellite TV so I didn’t have to miss any football. Fortunately I am in the airport right now where I do have Internet access and am writing my blogs, hopefully they won’t be counted as late. I really hope I can get back in time to watch the USC and Clemson game.

Sustainability

I do feel as though I live a sustainable lifestyle. I try not to be wasteful in my day to day activities but sometimes I still can be. To me sustainability is living a lifestyle where you don’t use more than you can give back. I think as a whole we need to come together and try to be more conservative in the use of our natural resources. Our culture today is one in which sustainability is not strongly emphasized. Instead, we value buying a lot of things that we may not need and not worrying about the impact we may be having on the world. One thing that I could do to try to be more sustainable is to recycle more. They just put in recycling bins in the room where I throw all my trash and I’m going to try and use those to attempt to improve my sustainability.

Career Center Presentation

My plans for Thanksgiving are to fly out to Colorado and spend Thanksgiving at my uncle’s ranch up in the mountains. Growing up I always wanted to be some sort of an athlete. If it was football season I wanted to be a football player, if it was basketball season I wanted to be a basketball player, whatever sport was on TV the most for a period of time is the sport I wanted to go pro in, with the exception of baseball. I would be interested in doing an internship this summer but I would rather wait and do my internship the summer after sophomore or junior year. I am going to take some classes over the summer and would rather just do a simple job to give me a small income over the summer. I would prefer to take it easy this summer. What I found most interesting from the presentation was all the tools that can be found on the career center’s website.

"The Hangover": USC Edition- EXTRA CREDIT

The material discussed in “The Hangover”: The USC Edition was nothing new to me. It was just more information about the dangers of consuming alcohol and how to handle certain situations concerning alcohol. Unfortunately the clips they were going to show didn’t work so the funny material from The Hangover was not incorporated into the presentation. The presenters showed us a lot of facts about drinking that has already been pretty well drilled into my head. After the main presentation we were divided up into small group. In these small groups we played drinking games, but not with real alcohol, just little paper squares that say “drink”. We played the drinking game Circle of Death, a game using a deck of cards. In this game you draw a card and have to do whatever the number represents, the loser of this will have to take a drink. By giving us these drink squares every time we lost I could really see how quickly a person can become intoxicated during drinking games.

Mutual Expectations Workshop- EXTRA CREDIT

I wasn’t too sure what to think when I first went walked into Harper College for the Mutual Expectations Workshop. It was really nice getting to enjoy a little snack before it started. There were a few round tables where everybody sat, students and faculty, to discuss academic integrity. Once everybody arrived we immediately got into discussion. We went around, saying what we thought faculty and students do to promote academic integrity. It was really interesting to hear the views of the faculty at my table. Questions about how to deal with giving fair grades with students, how to educate students about plagiarism, and other ethical questions were all discussed in this workshop. We then went on to talk about how each side might be able to improve in their ability to promote academic integrity. Listening to what the faculty and other students had to say really made me think about how I go about academic integrity and I definitely learned a few tips to improve on in the future.

Financial Responsibility

Yes I do see myself as being financially responsible. I just think I do a good job of not spending money on frivolous items. I really budget myself, my parents give me a certain amount of money each month and I think I do a pretty good job of making the most out of it. I just spend money on things that I want and everything finds a way to work out to my liking. When I come out of college I don’t even think I’ll try to get a job right away. My plan is to take a year or two off and hike the Appalachian Trail or maybe the Sierra Trail, just something outdoors. I’m also considering doing a little excursion by boat down to Cancun, doing a lot of fishing along the way. Then after that I’ll go to business school and once completed I’ll hopefully start off making close to six figures.

Brain Rules Chapters 11 & 12

I think I have managed my time so far this semester okay, but I definitely feel as though I could have done better. I should have spent more time trying to do Astronomy, a self-paced class that I am in. Since the semester is coming to an end I’m in a hurry to try to get all the required units done so that I can make a good grade in that class. I also wish I had spent more time doing my blogs, of which I consistently forgot to do until it was too late. I wish I had more time to work out and do other physical activities. To make room for this activity I will spend less time lying around being unproductive and instead go out and do something productive, such as working out. I just need to get more motivated and then I think I will be able to accomplish this.

Healthy Carolina

Yes I do consider myself a healthy. I exercise regularly in which I lift as well as participate in cardiovascular exercises. I also try to keep a good diet. I usually have sandwiches and baked chips for lunch. For dinner, I’ll often go for a grilled chicken salad or something from the hotline, I try to stay away from pizza and food served at the grill. Also, I make it a point to get enough sleep which is important in maintaining one’s health. In addition, I am not a smoker of cigarettes which is an activity that is detrimental to one’s health. I have developed a few relationships with people her at the University of South Carolina. Many of these new relationships consist of people who are Capstone Scholars. I believe that these relationships are good in supporting my success because we share the same goals of high academic achievement. 

Spirituality and Religion

To me religion and spirituality are different.  Religion is more concrete and has a defined set of beliefs. Spirituality is just going out somewhere and feeling the presence of a higher being. In my opinion, a person needs to have at least a little faith in a higher being in order to be spiritual. I can really relate to the whole spirituality idea. I am an Episcopalian and despite not believing everything that is taught I still feel as though I have a relationship with God. When I go out into nature I am able to experience the presence of a higher being that is not of this world. The beliefs of the South are definitely conservative. Most of the people of the South have strong ties to the church. This can be seen in the many dry counties that exist as well as the no sale of alcohol in the state of Georgia.

Diversity

Prior to coming to the University of South Carolina I defined diversity as the mixture of various ethnicities and other groups such as like skater guys, jocks, those types of stereotypes. Since my arrival here my viewpoint has remained the same. I would still use the definition of diversity that I thought of before I came to the University of South Carolina. I certainly have experienced diversity at my work site. For one thing, my mentee and I do not share the same race. He’s an African American, which is obviously different than me, Caucasian. Hand Middle School has a diverse student body with several different races and socioeconomic groups. My mentee uses some terminology that’s not very appropriate in a middle school setting, but I think it is the product of his upbringing. It gets a little annoying having to police him for an hour but that’s just what I have to do.

Brain Rules Chapters 5&6

So far, I have not participated in too many South Carolina traditions. I did the first year reading experience thing, but that not something I’m going to look back on and remember. In my opinion South Carolina football games are a tradition and I certainly have partaken in those events. The win against Alabama was super fun and probably one of my favorite things that I have done since I have been here at the University of South Carolina. Therefore, I’d have to go ahead and say that football games are my favorite tradition that I have been a participant in. I’m excited to continue participating in the University of South Carolina tradition that I enjoy so much. I especially can’t wait to experience the tradition of Tiger Burn. That’s only about a month away and I think will provide a nice compliment to the already fun football games.

Fall Break

My plans for fall break are to return home and just hang out. This weekend my town holds a Seafood Festival which is where a lot of people will be. I’ll have a lot of friends coming back from college for the weekend which should be fun. Everybody comes back for the Seafood Festival and has a really good time. It will be really awesome being able to see my best friends who I haven’t seen in a really long time. I also plan on spending Thursday and probably Friday to playing out on the water or fishing. I’m also going to use this time to sleep in a big bed and catch up on some sleep if I can. I’m just going to try and use Fall Break to try and slow things down and relax for a bit. Also, I plan on eating a lot of my mom’s food.

Alcohol

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the presentation on alcohol due to illness. However, all the tests we had to do on alcholedu should cover pretty much all I needed to know on the subject of alcohol. That program really went all out in covering all the aspects of alcohol consumption. For next semester I’m still not 100 percent sure as to what classes I would like to take. I will definitely be taking English 102 and Spanish, but I’m not sure whether I’d like to take Math 170 or Philosophy 110. I’m debating whether I’d like to take Psychology or Sociology right now as well. I just need to decide which course I think would be easier and then I’d select it. I also need to take a fine art which as of right now I have no idea which one I would like to do but before long I’ll figure it out.

Brain Rues Chapter 3&4- Undergraduate Research

So far I have enjoyed my time at my service site. My kid has proven to be a little challenging to handle, but I have developed some strategies to try and combat this. Before we settle down to do work I take him outside where we do physical activities such as run around the track or shoot basketball. After I tire him out a little, I take him inside where he is more settled down and can focus better on his schoolwork. I also feel as though I do a good job in making sure he stays organized. Part of the mentoring program requires us to check over things such as a student’s locker, book bag, and folder to make sure all of his schoolwork is organized. The first day of going over this I was able to make substantial improvements to these items which should be beneficial in making good grades.

Mid-term Exam

My favorite memory so far at the University of South Carolina would have to be when we beat UGA. I am from Georgia and a lot of my friends came up here for the game. The victory tasted even sweeter when I was able to rub it in their faces. If I could do the semester over again I think I wouldn’t have decided to drop from pledging. I miss everybody there and I wish I had stuck it out since I’m going back in the spring anyways. My goals that I set at the beginning of the semester are going pretty good. I’ve been able to keep my grades up and also get some exercise. As long as I can keep up my current work rate, I have found myself getting a little lazy as of late, I should be able to accomplish what I set out to do.

Brain Rules Overview

My initial perception of Brain Rules is that it could be very interesting. Discovering how you learn and how you best work is enticing to me. For the rest of the blog I have a bit of a problem, I did not go to the fair. I had an Astronomy lab during the majority of it so I never went. However I do feel pretty confident that the major I chose for myself, International Business. This is appealing to me because it will give me an opportunity to travel and experience new things while making money. I would really like to become a wealthy individual and I believe being a businessman will help me achieve that goal. By becoming a successful businessman, I believe I will have a very strong feeling of self-satisfaction. This major may be extremely challenging but I believe the end result will be worth the hardwork.

Campus Safety Presentation

So far my classes have been going pretty well. I’ve been maintaining pretty good grades and hope that the trend will continue. My favorite class so far has been my Math 122. I’ve been doing pretty well in it which certainly contributes to my favoring it. Also, it’s my largest class so I like how I can just go into class, sit back, and learn. Nobody is pressuring me to learn or asking me any questions trying to make sure I learn the material. I learn best when I am able to just sit back, watch, and absorb the information. I don’t find math to be a very interesting class but the style in which Math 122 is formatted is really appealing to me. I like going to class and just being able to chill. Up to this point, I have not gone to meet with any of my professors, something I will do in the upcoming days.

Service-Learning Site Visit

After visiting the site where I will be doing my service work, Hand Middle School, I was excited to get started. The school was extremely nice and I can’t wait to meet and get to know my kid. I’m just worried about making sure I do everything right. The leaders of the program told us that if mentoring is not done in the right in the right manner it can actually be detrimental to the kid. They handed us a really big packet with all the information for being a mentor in it. I just hope I can absorb enough of that information and be a good mentor for my student. I want to gain from this experience a greater appreciation for service learning. Really want I want from this is to help the kid that I am assigned. It would just be really nice for me to be able to help somebody else out.

Patrick Hickey - Presentatioin

So far, I have had a good experience as a Capstone Scholar. There are always lots of different activities planned so if you want to you can be busy almost all the time. However, the Capstone program is not very demanding so it does not detract from other activities that you might want to pursue. My experience thus far at USC has been a bit different than what I expected. I did not expect pledgeship to be the way it was. It was very stressful and really hurt my overall experience. The past week since I dropped has been more enjoyable and what I had previously expected. Dropping was hard because I had grown close to some of those guys but if I choose I can always go back in the spring. As far as school goes it is not easy but I haven’t had much trouble getting good grades.  

Time management, goal setting, personal challenge

One particular goal I set for myself in my Student Engagement Plan is to try and get a 4.0 this semester. I feel like it would make college a lot easier if I started out on top instead of always trying to dig myself out of a whole. It’s going to be difficult juggling everything I have going on, I already have no free time, but I feel as though I am capable of pulling it off through hard work and dedication. My personal challenge is to be a more outgoing and sociable person. In certain situations I am shy and not as gregarious as I would like to be. Being able to talk to people in any social setting is an important skill to have. It might feel a little uncomfortable at first to try and do this. One tactic I might employ to achieve this is to kind of role play and act like someone I know who is more comfortable in these settings.

Academic Success

I didn’t feel as though my LASSI scores correctly reflected where I was academically. However, I don’t totally blame LASSI. I don’t think I answered the questions as well as I could have. After about question 50 I began to get tired of responding to such similar questions and started to rush and not think the questions all the way through. I feel like some of my academics strengths are that I’m able to keep a cool head and not get too nervous for academic tests and work. I also am pretty good and understanding the main points of what something is trying to tell me. One are where I really feel like I could improve in is my time management skills. I tend to procrastinate on certain tasks, which makes it hard on me when a deadline approaches. To try and change this I’m going to try and keep a schedule, we’ll see how it goes though.

Service-Learning Training

When I lived in Savannah I would go to Forsythe Park just about every Sunday to help feed the homeless. Also, one summer I went to Guatemala for two weeks where I worked at an orphanage helping teach orphans basic English and Math. However, this is the first time I’ve ever had service connected to a course. If I could provide service anywhere I would go back to Latin America and continue to help out there. The place I was at was such a beautiful place and full of so much potential. Most everybody there was so nice and I feel like I should go back and help those people out some more. Despite their tough situation, the children at the orphanage were still happy and full of energy. This inspires me to go back and help them realize a better life where they have the some of the luxuries we have in America.

Involvement- Student Organization Fair

When I went to the student organization fair the other day I felt a bit overwhelmed. There were all these people coming up to me asking me things. Also, there were so many people there that it made it hard to get a grasp on things. All the commotion made it hard for me to decide which ones I wanted to go up to. The two organizations I would potentially join are the wakeboarding club and the mountaineering and whitewater club. I enjoy wakeboarding; it’s what I spent a majority of my time doing over the summer. Also, I’m a big fan of hiking and enjoying the outdoors, which makes it a good idea for me to join the mountaineering and whitewater club. If I could make one organization I would make the Grateful Dead Appreciation Club. I really like listening to their music and there are so many songs that they made we would never get tired of listening to their jams.

Labor Day

This weekend I went back to my home in the Savannah area. I am really looking forward to go home and relax and get a break from pledging. I miss being able to relax and being spoiled by my mom. I can’t wait to eat some good home cooked food that I know will be healthy for me. Also, I look forward to sleeping in my big, soft, actually comfortable bed. My main goal for this weekend will be catching up on sleep. As far as Labor Day goes, I’ll be spending it on the road back up to Columbia to take a test for my fraternity. However I plan on being able to still be able to sleep in late on Monday because I only have to be back in Columbia by 5. After I finish with that I plan on doing some schoolwork that I need to get done for the week ahead. Woohoo.

History of Carolina and Carolinian

I expect my experience at the University of South Carolina to be a fun experience but filled with new challenges. Hopefully I’ll meet lots of new people and create long lasting relationships. Also, I hope that the University of South Carolina will give the opportunity to prepare myself to perform in a productive role in the workforce. So far my time at USC has been hectic. Whether it be school or fraternity related activities my time has always been taken up. I’m looking forward to the semester coming to an end because after that I’m hoping I’ll have a little bit of time for myself. When this semester started I had no idea I would always be so busy. I had enjoyed a really relaxing summer where I pretty much had too much time on my hands. However this does provide me a chance to improve on my time management skills.