Reflections About Online Learning

This winter, I am in enrolled in two online courses: Introduction to Nutrition and Technical Writing. I had never previously taken an online course, and I didn’t really want to for reasons of time and expense. However, I needed to complete my general education goals this winter in order to graduate this spring, so I took the classes anyway. I was nervous about the concept of online learning: How would I possibly learn as well without frequent communication with a professor? (I have been spoiled by the low student to faculty ratio at Bloomsburg.) How would I be able to manage my time while also working full time hours and participating in the holidays? These were challenges that I certainly faced, but with the help of my professors and my practices in time management, I have found online learning to be a successful way to study a general education topic and learn to manage time.

I have always preferred sprinting to long-distance running. In high school I was on the track team and I abhorred running the longer-distance events (basically anything more than half of a mile), but I excelled at the short-distance sprints (my favorite race was the 4 x 100m relay). I have seen in a parallel to my running preference in my learning preference this winter term. I truly enjoyed studying two topics in depth over a short period of time. I feel that it helped to maintain my focus on the material. During a normal semester, I tend to shift my focus between classes and give the most attention to the class with the nearest deadlines. This causes me to lose focus on my other classes for a while and then I have to catch myself up when I return my focus to them. I think that causes me to retain less of the information I have learned and prevents me from achieving full mastery of the material.

Learning online in a fast paced, five-week course prevents these issues from occurring. I did not have a choice but to maintain focus on both courses for the entire semester. This way, I have been able to better retain information that I am learning and therefore apply that knowledge to all assignments. I have not felt that I needed to do “catch up” work; that may be a function of both the short length of the term and the frequent assignment due dates.

A fortunate accident that I have experienced this winter term is that both of my classes have significant overlap, though I did not expect they would. Since the main project in my Technical Writing class was to develop recipes, I was able to use my knowledge from my Nutrition class to enhance the nutrition of the recipes I created. In my nutrition class, the final project is to create a “tip sheet” for nutrition, and I am using many skills that I have learned in Technical Writing to complete that assignment.

I do acknowledge the challenges of online learning as well. I learn well with others, so having decreased personal communication with others in the class nor with the professor makes me feel a bit distanced from the learning process. Another challenge was balancing my personal schedule with my academic schedule. I have always used winter break as a time to work many hours at my part-time job to save up for the spring semester. I was not willing to sacrifice that while taking my winter classes, especially since they added an expense, so I had to balance my work schedule with keeping up on class work. This was very manageable, especially because all the assignments were available from the beginning of the term.

Though I had reservations about online winter classes, I am glad that I enrolled and I feel that I have received a great education this term. Despite the challenges, I would definitely recommend winter classes to other students.

This College Senior Didn’t Have a True Resume Until Today

Every week it seems that my Technical Writing class brings a new challenge that causes me to reflect upon what I have learned in my undergraduate career.

This week, I learned that I don’t know how to find or apply for jobs. That is a scary realization, as I am entering my final semester of college. I have focused most of my energy on applying for graduate programs, while having a “back-burner” idea that I will also apply for jobs. I am grateful for this week’s assignments because they caused me to realize that I was wholly unprepared to approach plan B.

I have relished the idea of going to graduate school because I love learning and participating in science. It has also felt like a more certain path to follow – I have been in contact with prospective advisers since the summer, and my communication with them gives me a sense of security that I will be able to join their program. They treat me as though I am one of few students looking to fill the position of a student researcher in their lab, but when applying for a job there are many others eager to take on the role. While I acknowledge that my perceived security of acceptance to a graduate program is nowhere close to a guarantee, it still feels more secure than applying for a single position as a faceless persona with nothing but the black and white of my abilities on paper, up against dozens or even hundreds of applicants with the same qualifications.

I actually did not have a working one-page resume until this week (I know, that’s cringe-worthy from a student who is weeks away from applying for graduation). I have built a curriculum vitae (CV) because these are common in academia, and I have used this when applying for schools and contacting professors. The formatting of my CV is simple and focuses on content. I also have everything listed; the document is nearly three pages. Because I have this well-thought CV, I believed that writing a resume would not be challenging at all. However, I failed to realize that there is effort required in choosing only the best information from a list of accomplishments, experience, and skills to give the best image of myself as a potential employee on a single page. In this assignment, I struggled to choose what information to display on my resume and how to provide a clear overview of myself in one page. This returns to my original goal for learning in the class: becoming a more concise writer. I didn’t imagine it would apply to my resume, but this may be perhaps one of the best applications of the skill. I also struggled with formatting, understanding that a resume which is pleasing to the eye will make the content appear more impressive. This is something I would like to majorly improve in future drafts of my resume.

Finally, I realized that I am not quite sure of the exact employment position I would like to hold. Many of the jobs that I read about seemed boring to me at first glance. I know that I like Environmental Chemistry, it is the combination of my two majors after all, but all of the jobs for which I searched in that field involved hazardous waste containment, in which I am not interested in the slightest. I found the job that I used for my resume and cover letter assignment by accident – it was suggested to me by the website LinkedIn and I found it intriguing even though it was a job at a pharmaceutical company and I know nothing of biology. This showed me that I need to broaden my job search instead of trying to focus on specific fields and titles, as I could be missing out on something I may really enjoy.

I am grateful to have learned about creating a concise resume and searching for jobs, because this is a skill I will need to have in the future. It is better to learn it now than in a few months when I will need to apply the skills.  

College Hunger and Recipe Writing Reflection

Many say that college is the best time in life, but I would argue that it can be one of the most challenging times in life. In my experience, college has been more about learning to overcome obstacles and grow into a stronger person than about being careless and having fun. Specifically, the current exorbitant cost of college compared to low wages creates a great challenge for students in paying for a higher education. This concept is all too poignant for students experiencing hunger in college.

Food is an important aspect of a student’s life. Personally, I know I struggle to focus on school work when I am hungry. I am fortunate enough to have access to nutritious food to solve this issue and return to focusing on my assignment, but what of those who do not have that opportunity? This is another expression of classism in the United States. The idea is that the less fortunate should be able to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps” or “work hard” and they will be able to achieve the same success as those more fortunate. However, how does one do this when they do not have sufficient food to concentrate on school work? If a student that has access to food receives a better grade than a student who does not, is the more fortunate student smarter or more hard-working? Certainly not, though at first glance it appears that way. This issue is multi-faceted, and a true solution lies in a major overhaul of the way we view the cost of college education, which would be a state-wide or a nation-wide effort. However, as a campus community at Bloomsburg University, we can take small actions to help our fellow students in providing money or food, or in presenting information about how to eat on a budget.

An important issue to consider is the nutrition of college students’ meals. I am currently taking a nutrition course online, and it is eye-opening to learn how much goes into eating a balanced diet every day. Eating a nutritious diet requires variety in the foods eaten and particularly seems to require planning in advance to ensure dietary needs are being met. This provides an even greater challenge for students who are food insecure. One of the major terms that has been repeated throughout the course is “nutrient density” – how many nutrients there are in a food relative to its calorie content. In creating my recipes for the H3 cookbook, I would like to consider a third dimension to that analysis – comparing nutrient density to the cost of the food item. I feel that it is very important for college students to eat a nutritious diet; we work so hard every day and we need healthy fuel for that hard work. There are also many misconceptions about what is “healthy” and what is not: for example, about 50% of our daily calorie intake should come from carbs, which is great for college students since carbs are so cheap. However, those carbs should be whole wheats, which many people do not consume because the processed white breads and pastas are usually cheaper and taste better. Another example is the misconception that fruit juices and other processed sources of fruits and vegetables are a good source of these nutrients, which is not totally true. Fruit juices contain great amounts of added sugars which will contribute to obesity and make the consumer feel more tired. Whole fruits and vegetables are the healthier choice due to their higher fiber content, lower sugar and calorie content, and the lack of processing. This is another facet I would like to consider in my recipe: utilizing fresh fruits and vegetables where possible with respect to the budget. A final consideration I will take into my recipes is the ease of cooking them. Personally, I at first feel overwhelmed when I try to look up healthy recipes and they all seem to be very involved in the cooking process. This overwhelmed feeling stems from multiple factors: I feel I don’t have the time to constantly cook healthy meals throughout the week, that I don’t have the skills to execute the recipe properly, and that I do not have the proper kitchen equipment that the recipe requires. Therefore, I want to make my recipes accessible for students with limited time, a limited knowledge of cooking, and a limited inventory of cooking supplies.

An Unexpected Introspective Journey

                When I saw the first reading assignment for this class, I rolled my eyes a little bit (no offense, Dr. Martin). The article, a chapter from a textbook written by Hazard and Nadeau, was about “Claiming Your Education,” a motivational piece for students entering their freshman year of college. The purpose of the chapter seemed to be to assuage students’ fears and insecurities about entering a new, scary environment. As a college senior, I felt like the reading would not be relevant to me because I’m about to have college in my rear-view mirror.

                I was wrong.

                The part of the chapter that first caught my attention was the section about “Intellectual Curiosity.” I was admittedly reading rather lazily, when I came upon a sentence that read “In the first paragraph of this chapter, when you encountered the last name of an individual, Foucault, did you attempt to investigate who this person was if you did not already know?” And I realized that it never even occurred to me to do that. And then I thought about how I am currently finishing up applications for graduate schools. Graduate school, from my perspective, is the place for the intellectually curious. So, naturally, I felt ashamed of myself for not demonstrating intellectual curiosity. How can I expect to succeed in scientific research, which is all about curiosity, if I don’t practice curiosity in my everyday endeavors? Now, I know that I practice more curiosity when reading about topics that are very important to me, such as chemistry and ocean sciences. However, this article struck me with the realization that curiosity is not an instinct for me in all circumstances. Curiosity is a habit that I will need to practice, because I recognize its importance and I want to participate in it to become a better student and person. So, the article that I initially rolled my eyes at ended up sending me on an introspective journey that I did not expect. Dr. Martin – 1, Lauren – 0.

                Another piece of the article that stood out was the chapter’s namesake – the quote by Adrienne Rich about claiming an education, where she asserts that “receiving” an education is being acted upon, while “claiming” an education is acting. This quote caused me to reflect on the three and a half years I have been in higher education. Looking back, I can definitely see the evolution of myself as a student – I started out receiving an education but I believe I have since grown to claim my education. During my freshman year I sought only to learn about what I was taught in my classes, but I never applied my new knowledge to anything outside of class. I entered college as an Engineering major, and I was bored. I didn’t love engineering. I loved the environment, but I wasn’t getting the opportunity to learn about it. In the beginning of my sophomore year, I changed my major to Chemistry, because I knew I was good at it and I found it much more interesting than Engineering. I still wasn’t really doing what I wanted, though. Finally, during the second semester of my sophomore year, I decided not to change my major, but to add a dual major in Environmental Geoscience. This changed my entire view of my education! I felt satisfied in the challenges and hard work that were presented to me through my Chemistry major, but I was still able to study what I feel passionate about, the environment. From my sophomore year onward, I feel that I have been claiming an education because now I finally apply (and question) what I have learned rather than just digesting and accepting everything that I am told, because I actually care about and find utility in everything I learn in both of my majors. I absolutely agree with Adrienne Rich that claiming an education is much more fulfilling than receiving one.

                Honestly, I haven’t taken a general education course in at least a year and a half (the dual major life is no joke), but I’m glad that I am taking one now. I am used to using critical thinking externally, that is, only thinking about my environment and the world around me, but not thinking introspectively. Introspection is important, and I hope I continue to have my thoughts challenged so I can better myself, improve my intellectual curiosity, and not be the STEM robot into which I am kind of morphing. Or, if I’m going to be a robot, I would at least like to be a sentient robot.