End of Semester

The end of the semester is finally here! Yeah!!!! After a wonderful Easter break spent with the family, it is time to get down to business in preparing for exams. Which, by the way, are not easy to prepare for! One exciting event I have to look forward to is the Horseback riding trip I will be participating in this weekend. It counts towards my physical education credits which is totally awesome. We will not only go horseback riding, we will also learn to square dance, canoe and learn horse yoga (not to sure what this is yet!). It will be an exciting way to end a stressful school year…as long as exams go well!! The weekend will begin on Friday and end Saturday evening….2 days of fun and I don’t have to sit through class every week….easy way to get credits if you ask me! I know this is a short blog but more will be to come after my trip this weekend!

Managing Stress

Managing stress is key to a successful college career. Once you have mastered how you personally manage stress, things become a lot easier. You have to remember there are more things in life that are going to stress you out besides just school work. On top of classes, papers, and homework, most students also have to manage the stress of a job, family life, bills and loans, unexpected expenses, and sometimes unexpected illness to yourself or family members.

One way that I have learned to manage stress is to be organized. Without organization lots of time is wasted, and to a college student, time is everything. I don’t believe there is one way to stay organized and what is organized to me may not be organized to you. Find what works for you and go with it. One way I manage stress is by having an agenda. At the beginning of every semester, I write down all my assignments and readings for each class. I also write down my work schedule and anything else I know that is going on. This way I can plan ahead. Say I have a weekend planned with some friends, I know that week I need to work harder to get all my assignments done so come Monday I am prepared.

I am also a fan of binders. I think having a different binder for every class is beneficial. It helps you find things a lot quicker and more easily than if everything was just mixed together. Now how you organize those binders is up to you. I prefer to organize mine by units. Most of my classes have three or four units, or in other terms, three or four tests. I keep all the information that I have for that specific unit in the same section. Once it comes time to study for the test, I flip to that unit and it is much easier to study when all the information is in order.

I think everyone has a different way of managing stress, it just takes some time and practice to figure out what your way is. I am the queen of organization, so if you ever need help, let me know!

Keeping Busy

I am sure that most high school students think that once they get to college they will have so much free time to do whatever they want. That’s what I thought and let me tell you, you are wrong!!!!

My week is pretty busy. I have class from 8 to 12 on Monday, then I work for 4 hours. Tuesday, I have class from 8 to 2. Wednesday, I have an 8 hour clinical that usually begins at 7. Thursday, I have class from 8 to 2, plus I work, and Friday, I have yet another 8-hour clinical. Plus homework on top of that! So if you think college is going to be a breeze, think again!

 Although  I spend most of my week studying, I do find time for fun! The way I do that is time management. The first semester of school is all about learning to manage your time. Once you have that conquered, it becomes a lot easier to find free time.  You learn to work around things that you want to do or have planned already with friends. And trust me, you will learn to live on little or no sleep.

To help you with time management, you will take a class your first semester. It’s kind of a how to survive college 101 class. There are two differnent ones: Foundations for success and IConnect. You do a time management project that helps you figure out how you spend your time and what you spend your time on. Off of that, you learn how to adjust your schedule to fit in classes, a job, homework, athletics, and of course, free time. It’s a very helpful project that will help you eliminate wasting time on things you shouldn’t be wasting time on.

I think that every person is different at handling situations. You have to learn what works best for you, but time management is the key to success in college!

First Year Students

In all honest opinion, I really encourage first year students to live on campus. Living on campus allows you to meet new friends and helps you become involved in different activities, sports, or groups. When I was a freshman, I lived in the freshman dorms. Although it was a tight squeeze with my roommate and I, along with trying to share a bathroom with 30 other girls, I had the greatest time because it allowed me to make life long friends. Along with having new friends, I also became involved in a lot more. I participated in various activities offered around campus to where if I would not have lived on campus, I would not have had that opportunity. We had dances, homecoming, and a ball that offered horse and carriage rides. Saturdays were a riot with people tailgating for football games. I also participated in intramural sports on Monday and Wednesday nights. We played basketball, volleyball, dodgeball, and many other games. We had a dorm room scavenger hunt towards the end of the year to where we had to race around town looking for various objects. Living on campus allowed me to experience so much. I had fun meeting new people and fun being involved in different activities. I encourage every new student to do the same. I also encourage students to go to the Saint Francis website and look at the different clubs and organizations you can get involved in. It will be worth your time….It was worth mine!

Radiology

So like I said in my previous blog, I am a radiology student. This is my first year in the program and I love it. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of hard work that is involved, but in the end I know it will be worth it. Most of my week is either spend at Saint Francis in the class room, or at a clinical site. I have 3 days of classes a week and 2 full days of clinicals. It seems like a lot but good time management helps out a lot. Saint Francis has lab class rooms set up for students who are medical majors. So when I am learning how to take an x-ray of an arm, I can actually use the equipment I would in a hospital to practice that procedure. There is also a dark room where I can process my images. Each major has a lab for its students to practice in. I think that is a really good benefit for Saint Francis because it allows the students to be more prepared when they actually do start clinicals.

I was recently back in my hometown at a little cafe eating lunch. When a friend of the family came and asked me about college. I told him I was a student at the University of Saint Francis and I was majoring in Radiology. He replied to me by saying that his wife had graduated from Saint Francis from the nursing program and that everywhere she had an interview she was commended for choosing Saint Francis because they knew she would be well prepared for her actual job. I think that says great things for a college when going into an interview and having an upper hand since you did graduate from a great school and you are well prepared to start working.

Radiology isn’t the only great program that Saint Francis has to offer. I encourage you to look into the many different programs and choose the one that is best for you. No matter what you choose, you won’t regret being a student at Saint Francis. I sure don’t!

A Little About Me

Hi, My name is Ashley and I am a student at the University of Saint Francis. I am a sophomore and a Radiology major. Some of the things I love are sports, chocolate, shopping, and Greys Anatomy! Who doesn’t love Greys! I played sports in high school and was also a member of NHS, student council president, and a yearbook staff editor. I come from a very loving family and have a brother still in high school. Saint Francis was the only school I visited when I started applying for colleges. I came here once and knew I loved it. I am currently working as a tour guide at the university and as you can see, I am also a blogger!

One thing that really attracted me to Saint Francis was the fact that it was small and had small classes allowing for more one-on-one time with the professors if needed. I believe my biggest class so far was a general psychology class that may of had 50 students in it. My smallest class is my radiology lab class which only has 5! So there is a lot of one-0n-one time that the professors can provide for you.

Saint Francis has so much to offer each student that comes here. I am glad that I am going to be able to share with you my experiences in the next several months to come!