Important Student Skills

Greetings and salutations,

My name is Eunice Rivas, I am an 18-year-old Christian Latina. I live with both of my parents, younger brother and sister. I am studying to become a nurse because I want to help people who are in need. We need more helpful people in this world so if becoming a nurse is going to help people, I’m content. I’m a family oriented person who cares about my family's happiness more than my own. I am always spending time with my family as a pass time. Our family all lives close to each other, and I only have to walk past 2 houses to arrive at my great grandparent's house where I usually spent my childhood in. I learned how to play the piano, cook, garden, and sew from my great-grandparents. I was never the sporty or social type so my hobbies consist of solely reading. I've always had my own library in my room since elementary. Being a shy person really took a toll on my learning skills, so my mother sent me to a communications-based highschool called Da Vinci Communications. At Da Vinci, I developed presentation, collaboration, and communication skills. Attending Da Vinci was a great experience and brought me out of my shell. Instead of taking test our grades were determined by projects and presentations. The fact that we didn’t take tests would be the only negative aspect of my high school career, other than that I feel I've learned my valuable skills from my time there.

Managing time really is a crucial skill I learned from Ten skills you need to succeed in school by John Langan. For me, managing time has always been a skill I never took into consideration. I was horrible at managing my time during high school since I always procrastinated. Langan teaches the reader a couple important steps when managing your time. First, it is important to use the course's syllabus for an organization tool in managing time. Before college, I never took the time to read over any syllabuses given to me. At the time it didn’t seem useful, but the author explains how syllabuses are guides for “what you must do” to prosper in your class. It gives important dates for things like quizzes and exams If you read the syllabus you won't have any questions as to when things are due and how much time you have left before an assignment is due. Before when I didn't read the syllabus I was always asking my classmates and teachers when assignments were due. This really got in the way of time management since everything for me disorganized. Keeping a calendar is another crucial skill in managing your time. The calendar is mostly used to illustrate what your month is going to look like. It also highlights important dates for test, quizzes, and deliverables. Even though, my high school provided every student a planner I never once wrote in it. I could've taken advantage of the planner and not have to worry about when assignments were due. A similar essential tool for managing time is creating a daily planner. Creating a daily planner specifically plans out your day to complete what needs to get done. In the past, I always made mental notes of what I needed to do. I always told myself “ start doing your homework in an hour” but that never worked. A daily planner specifically indicates the time each assignment needs to get done. For Instance, in my planner for math, it reads: at 1:30 today work on math homework, at 2:30 email professor homework questions, at 3:00 pm start studying notes and homework etc.

Taking notes in class is another essential skill I learned from reading Ten skills you need to succeed in school by John Langan. Taking notes is a common skill anyone can implement into their student life. Listening to a lecture is one thing but taking notes while absorbing and processing the information given is another. As a student writing down notes while trying to comprehend the lesson was always a difficult task for me. Langan explains writing the material presented in class is crucial for studying later on. But making sure to take good notes is something students have trouble doing. There are many details played out in good note taking, For example, sitting in the front of the class helps in taking great notes because we are able to stay in tune with the lesson. Also, “watching for signs of importance” is another part of good note-taking. What this means is waiting for the professor to tell you what you need to write down or taking to incitative of writing down things like definitions, lists, and examples presented in the lesson. When I took notes in class I wrote everything down every single word that came out from the teacher's mouth. That lead to not being able to comprehend the lesson and falling behind in what was said next in the lesson. The author explains it is very important that you evaluate the important things to write down during class, so that later when you're reviewing your notes you are able to clearly see the big picture of the lesson and key ideas. Once you start implementing these tools as a daily habit, school work will be less stressful.