Back to School: Overview

Learning, they say, is a continuous process. Whether one is in school, on vacation, in church, in a party or in the solitude of silence, learning takes place as long as an individual is responsive to the stimulus which kindles learning. Going back to school shall, however, always be an exhilarating experience for individuals like me who value college schooling as a sacred venture to gain steady foothold for a good future.

This paper briefly describes my learning profile, my perceived strengths which will tide me over a college course, the challenges that I need to hurdle to make the most out of my tertiary education and my special formula towards a successful college life. My Learning Profile From my previous readings, I have reason to believe that I am primarily an auditory learner. I learn best by listening to lectures, rather than by reading lecture hand-outs. Believe it or not, easy listening music usually complements my studying environment. I would like to believe that I am an extrovert.

If I may expound, being an extrovert made me enjoy listening to lectures and speeches either with a small or big crowd. I love to share my opinion in the same way that I love hearing others’. The temperament that goes with this moderately extroverted personality may be described as one with a persistently fair activity level and predominantly positive moods. I am neither sensitive nor irritable. My Strengths The following qualities which I developed from home and from previous exposures in academic and extra-curricular activities will be of paramount influence if I were to be successful in obtaining a good college education.

My experiences in dealing with people of various cultures made me flexible, sharpened my inter-personal skills and thought me the essence of teamwork. I am extremely thankful that my parents trained me to be self-motivated, well-organized, to have initiative, manage time well, and to act with integrity at all times. Schooling honed my problem-solving and critical thinking skills and endowed me with an entrepreneurial spirit. My Challenges The cliche that “patience is a virtue” is not yet rooted in my system.

This is the greatest weakness that I need to strengthen so that I can get well adapted to college-level learning. My older friends told me that college is so much different from high school. I am starting to believe them. If the challenges I braved in high school did not seem to have developed my patience, I pray that I can invoke my inner self to help me bring out a whole lot of patience, for my own sake. I know I will be needing a lot of it now that I am in college and even more of it in the coming years.

Another weakness that I need to address is my propensity to procrastinate. I have heard lots of accounts from college students that there are always so many things to do and less time to do it. I hope that I stop putting off for tomorrow what I can do for today. This way, I will be able to squeeze in all the academic requirements into my limited schedule. My Plan To be successful in college, I have devised a simple plan. This plan entails setting extremely high goals for myself. The rationale is that, even if I do not reach the goal I would have done better than being mediocre.

To wit, my goal is to finish college on top of the class. My efforts will, therefore, be geared towards being number one. This means a lot of hard work, sleepless nights and patience. If I really do make it to number one, well and good. But if I do not, I may be number two, number three or even number 10, and this is not bad either. I would not aim for just a passing mark in college, because if I miss the passing mark, I would have failed since there is not much room to maneuver from merely passing to failing.

Better said than done, however, setting higher standards mean harder work and lesser fun, as I would have to make advance readings for every new lesson. Reading in advance, according to research, will facilitate comprehension of concepts and theories during the class lecture better than those who did not read beforehand. Conclusion Taking this course made me both a better person and a better learner. I came to know myself better and this provided me important insight into the factors which will help me spell the difference between simply going to school and learning from school.

Writing this paper propelled positive thoughts and critical thinking which enabled me to describe myself, my challenges and my plan the way I pictured them in my mind. The mere fact that I completed this requirement is proof that the course served its purpose in exploring the personal dimensions of education. While the world is a gigantic arena of learning experiences, school is always the best forum for scholarly input. Indeed, I am glad I am back to school.