A Quality Student

I feel as though I have been drifting off the subject recently and would like to re-focus why I decided to keep a blog in the first place.

Not Paying Attention "hehe"

That being said, the reason for this post is to comment (more like soapbox) about my fellow classmates and their attitude in class. I go to a community college; there are a number of different reasons that people choose to continue their education at a community college. Most of the students there don't really know what they want to get a degree in, many attend to transfer to a four year school that would not take them out of high school, many attend because of the cost of higher education (times be hard), and so on. I choose to attend because of cost and the need to do better than I did in high school.

That being said I feel its necessary to share a few things that I have observed and have been taught by other students who are successful in their classes, and have been their entire lives. Why would I do this you ask? I want share an experience that I had recently in my math class that seems to be a reoccurring theme in many of my classes so for. I take classes at 8:00 am. I understand that getting to class is hard and not everyone is a morning person. However that doesn't give anyone the right to be disrespectful or distracting. There are two students that sit next to me (a guy and a girl) and they probably decided to take this class together because they knew one another. On this particular day they decided to come to class and do absolutely nothing, and I mean disrespectfully nothing. He played free cell on him laptop and she actually put her head down and shut her eyes during the lesson. In a class of 26 people the Professor could not notice. Why then did they even worry about coming to class? We had a quiz that day at the end of class and you cannot make up missed quizzes.

I don't think Yoda was concerned
about the time his education took

This brings me to my first habit that has helped to change me from being a "C" average student consistently to getting straight "A's" my last quarter. Be invested in your classes. This can be interpreted in a number of different ways. For me the first thing that I had to decide was, I wanted to be there no matte what. I decided what degree I wanted to pursue. Then I broke down the concept of school in a number of different terms. If I want to get a PhD I am going to be in school for 8 years, possibly more. That seems like a long time, but if I think of it as part of setting up my future career I probably (economy willing) will have a job for 40 years or more. Now looking at it 5% of my future career spent on education doesn't seem like such a long time to me. School costs a lot of money, and I have to take out student loans to afford to pay for my education. That's awesome that I don't have to focus on the cost of my education up front, but I will have to pay that money back someday. So each quarter I borrow money to take my classes I break down how much each class costs per hour i'm there; as well as how much money I waste by not being there for any reason. Even being at a community college I cannot afford to waste $197 per class, just because I am not showing up. (To put that in perspective my school has the lowest cost per credit hour in the area) Being invested in your classes makes a huge difference. If I was receiving a scholarship or similar financial aid that I did not have to repay, I might also look at my education as being such am immense gift from those who sponsor me and my future.

Those students that were present by them not paying attention and being disrespectful also made it so I lost attention in my class. Selfishly thinking that your actions don't affect others is a sign of ignorance and a further lack of respect. I am not perfect and at times I loose my concentration and slack off. I do my best not to perpetuate a lack of focus in myself as well as others. I have to remind myself constantly what is the reason I am in school and where it is going to take me in life.

I love to learn, and want to know what strategies or habits do you know that make you a Quality Student?