Cay 101: Foundations For College Success

When I began my senior year of high school, I was tired and unmotivated and chose to give up and not put my full effort into all my school work. I was so excited, my last year of high school. I was always told since I was a freshman that your junior year would be the hardest and the most important because those are the grades that colleges will mostly be looking at and that your senior year would be the easiest because you're mostly taking electives and you only need to focus on you main courses such as economics and english to graduate. When I started school this year I put off all my homework till last minute, I was absent more than usual, my work was sloppy, and I wasn't really participating. I kept thinking that all I need is a 65 in
every class and a 75 in my college english class. In my opinion most of my teachers just give you busy work and don't really go over everything that would be needed for my final. We would watch videos or read about stuff that really didn't have too much about the subject. I was in a victim mindset a lot through my first semester of school. I was just counting down the days till it was all over. Every year around early spring the counselors would call you down to make your schedule for the next year. When I made my schedule for my senior year, I took a lot of electives and tried for CCC English 101 and 102. The counselors said that if I took it I would have about a semester of college done without even being in college from all the college classes i took prior. This kind of encouraged me to do and speed up my years in college. The first semester was all about writing essays, I wrote about 10 to 15 essays. One of the essays we had to write was about an article. We had to underline, highlight, circle things like main ideas, examples, and the thesis and turn it into turnitin.com by midnight. This class was so much work for me to do all in one night and that made me so unmotivated and procrastinate with all the stuff i had to do and I just wanted to pass with a 75. I got home from school that day knowing it needed to be turned in. My friends asked to hangout so I made the wrong decision and when with them all night insteading of doing my paper. I thought doing all that stuff on my paper was unnecessary and there was no point to it. I thought the class would be easy and that I could do it. I got 10 points taken off my paper for it being late plus all the things I did wrong on the paper so i got a really bad grade.. The first semester of that class I was sliding by with a 78 and I knew I couldn't keep doing that. Starting my second semester, I was put in new classes and one of those classes was Cay 101: Foundations for College Success.
This classes teaches you how to be successful in college and ways to do that. I've learned so many strategies from the On Course textbook. I was lacking in motivation, so I tried the formula for motivation and found my motivation level to be lower than I would like it to be. My value on my education was a 5. My expectation on my education to be a 5. And my motivation was a 25 which was very low. To improve my score and try to make it increase I set goals using DAPPS which is dating my goals, making them achievable, positive and personal, and specific. I also created my life plan. The life plan made me realize my dreams as a student and what my short term goals were. Setting goals using DAPPS really encouraged me and made me want to accomplish them. Dating my goals made it feel like a challenge and that made me want to go for it more. Achievable made me think that I can do this and that there's no way that I can't. A positive goal was easy for me to think of. Lastley, being specific made me visualize what the outcome of my goal will look like. Using the DAPPS made my motivation
increase. Going into my second semester of english I tried to use DAPPS on my goals for this class.
By using this I have discovered what my goals and dreams are. I wanted to pass this class and go on to college but that's not going to happen if I fail english. I realized that all that busy work she was giving us wasn't actually busy work. She showing us how hard it can be in college and most of the material now that I come to think of it helped me with everything I did in that class whether it was vocab or learning to write a better thesis statement. My goal for that class was to pass with an 80 or high by the end of each marking period and to not slack on all my work and to do it well and on time. Now I actually do my work ahead of time so that I don't forget and I have time to go back and look over it and sometimes I have a little free time to myself. My current grade in my CCC English 102 is an 89 and so far i've been doing things days before they are actually do so I make sure it's
perfect.
Learning what DAPPS meant and the life plan, I think will make me very successful in college. In college I want to be motivated and determined to get my work done and correctly. I'll be going to the school's library, asking friends for help, and having meeting with my teachers about what I don't understand and need help with. In college I will make new goals for myself and use DAPPS which will encourage me to accomplish them. Making a life plan in college will help me with accomplishing my goals and make me visualize what my future will look like when these goals because real. Using these strategies make me really excited for my future and make me want to accomplish them and move onto my next goal. When I graduate this year I will be graduating with my advanced regents diploma and with about 15 college credits. Knowing this, this makes me more motivated and ready for college than I ever thought I could be.