Continuing Academic Success

Attending college online can be a little intimidating to some people who are just starting out, or are used to attending college on campus. For me, it was more of not having a choice to attend college online. Being a single mother with two children makes it extremely difficult to go to an actual campus. I was a little worried when class started not knowing the resources the college offered, nor was I familiar with help navigating through my classes online. This course has helped me tremendously to understand what is offered and how to better put them to use.
Before I started college, I set goals for myself. Not to just benefit me, but to also benefit my children. Procrastination and the inability to put forth effort to achieve these goals made it difficult and impossible to reach. Bentley (2012) stated, “Just like planning, scheduling out intentions is important, but it is still insufficient if you want to truly achieve your goals.” (p. 1). This course help me to learn how to start working towards the goals and what to do to constantly remind myself of why I am attending college in the first place. Posting index cards in frequently visited places in my house was one effective way to remind me that I need to continue to push forward to reach my goals. I have set in place an educational goal to make the Dean’s List my entire time in college. In order to reach this educational goal, I have to be dedicated and take my course work seriously, set aside time to study and focus only on school. To be successful in my career I have set a goal to become a Network Administrator by fall of 2016. Now, this goal is a little difficult but I know if I put forth effort it is reachable like all the other goals that I have set for myself. These goals are put in place for me and my family so that we would have a better life and my children will have the best. I want them to be proud of their mother and have the attitude that if their single mother can do it, they can too! Knowing that my kids look up to me and watch my every move constantly reminds me to maintain good ethics in and out of school.
Taking responsibility for your own actions and following the rules are very important in school and in the workplace. Both school and your job requires you maintain good ethics and expects for you to doing nothing less. I tend to react quickly before thinking about what the consequences may be. It’s important that I make a dramatic improvement if I want to continue to be successful in the workplace and in school. Also, sometimes I make excuses. If I am not paying attention, I can be tempted to excuse myself from following the rules. I insist that I’m being true to my values even when I’m not.
Besides having good ethics, thinking critically is also important in school/work. There are six steps in the critical thinking process that you must use in order to be a good critical thinker. I struggle with the first level which is remembering. When I am reading the material I can easily comprehend what the passage is saying and even use what I have read in real life situations. But the problem comes in when I have to site or state what the passage was about. I have gotten better with this step in the process by using sticky notes and jotting down the important facts from the material. Critical thinking also helps me when I am writing my papers. It allows me to use my creative side in writing.
I express a lot of my feelings and what I am feeling emotionally on paper. The writing process helps you with how to put your feeling and your emotions onto paper but in a more professional manner. Beginning the writing process can be difficult to most. It sometime can be a very gruesome process. Thinking about what to write can occupy a lot of your time. (Lopez-Mulnix, E. E., & Mulnix, M. W. (2010). You are to first gather your thoughts and think of a topic of what you want your paper to be about. You then write your thesis, give your