Importance of sleep for academic success
When I was younger I never wanted to go to bed at night and I was always up before dawn in the morning. I wanted to stay up all the time and I thought sleep wasn’t important. Now, I need sleep, in fact sleep is honestly one of my favorite things to do. I have been told my whole life that between 7-8 hours of sleep is ideal for adults, and sometimes that just is not possible; especially as a 21 year old college student balancing homework, friends, family and a job. In my freshman year of college I had straight As resulting in a 4.0 gpa. At this time I was getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night as well as napping during the day when I didn’t get a full night’s sleep. I thought college was going to be easy, I was having fun, didn’t have to work and I was doing work well in advance for my classes. But this all changed when my workload got heavier this past year. Once I began taking challenging courses for my major and got a job to pay for my bills, everything changed. I am no longer sleeping for 8 hours, and I am lucky if I get 6 hours. My grades have not been straight A’s, although they are not suffering they could always be better. So far this year, my sleep has been rough. It is hard for me to fall asleep at night due to stress of my academics, and I am usually getting to bed later than normal due to working on homework late into the night. I have been using my weekends so far for catching up on sleep and relaxing. I have been making sure on the nights I go out, I get home at a reasonable hour, so I can still get enough sleep and wake up at a decent time in the morning. As hard as hard as getting enough sleep can be, I am working on making sleep a vital part of my routine so that I can thrive academically as a student. The reason sleep affects academic success is because when we become sleep deprived it leads to somnolence, which affects our daily performance. Somnolence causes drowsiness, sluggishness, and it can also alter our mental alertness. Due to this lack of sleep students may perform poorly academically, gain weight, become depressed, use substances, get into car accidents, etc. Sleep is essential for restoring your body mentally and physically, as well as allowing your body to save its energy. While we sleep, our brain has chemicals that clean it out, and while doing this our learning gets synthesized and out memories are saved. This helps students retain the information they have learned during the day. Students health is also improved when we get the right amount of sleep. When students are in good health they are able to perform better and are less likely to miss school. As hard as it may be to make fit everything into our busy schedules as college students, it is imperative that we get enough sleep at night.
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My journey at PSU
Just over a year ago, I moved into dorm 618 in Merrill Place with my best friend. I remember the excitement I felt those first few days of being in a new school, with new people and now fast forward just over a year and I am preparing to graduate. Even though this is my third semester at Plymouth, I feel like I really figured out who I am as an academic while studying here. For me, I work better in smaller classes and luckily here at PSU, classes aren’t too big. With smaller classes it has been easier to focus in class and even be more involved in class participation. I also love the campus at PSU, everything is pretty close by and within walking distance, which makes day to day tasks easier. The best thing about PSU to me is,(I have said this before and believe me I will keep saying this), interdisciplinary studies. Interdisciplinary Studies has opened so many doors for me and introduced me to new ways of thinking and learning. I sometimes think about how my journey at PSU would differ if I didn’t choose IDS. I can say that IDS has allowed me to graduate a semester early. This is helpful for me, as I will be applying to Physician Assistant programs come springtime. IDS has also allowed me to take the meaningful classes. Every class on my contract has offered me some type of knowledge that will apply to my graduate program and even to my career. I am grateful that I came to PSU and that I discovered the IDS major while I was here, because it has truly impacted my life in a positive way. I’m of course so excited to be graduating, but at the same time I am sad to leave PSU. After brainstorming ideas for my applied project, I have decided to create a podcast based on the realm of health and medicine today. I want to do this in order to expand my knowledge about the career I am planning on going into, as well as explore topics and discussions in my field. I like the idea of a podcast because it allows me to explore different aspects of the health and medical community. The career I am working towards is a physician's assistant, which is a very diverse field, and relates to interdisciplinary work. There are so many fields of medicine and I will have to use knowledge from several different fields to diagnose and treat patients. I also like the idea of a podcast, because I think it could be beneficial to others, maybe students looking into going into a job in the medical field, or maybe someone who is looking for insight into health and medicine. Creating a podcast is also going to be fun, I get to research and learn new things about the field that excites me. I will post my podcasts to my eport. I will also invite friends and family and fellow students to listen to them and get feedback which will allow me to determine whether it was a success. I have written about this before, but a lot of my classes tie in to each other, and what I learn from one class will help me in another. The same thing is true for this project. I learn things in class that spark an interest on topics I want to look more into, and gives me ideas and some background on the topics I will talk about on my podcast. No matter what comes of this podcast, and whether or not people think it is successful, I think that I will still take it as a success. As long as I am doing something that allows me to use my interdisciplinary knowledge to learn about something new in my field, I will feel successful. Game plan: Week 1: Decide on applied project Week 2: Begin/ gather ideas and topics I want to explore for my podcast Week 3: Research on topics, and create drafts of podcasts Week 4: Record podcasts Week 5: Post draft on eport Week 6: FInalize project and post on eport RA Topics
AP Ideas
The topic I have chosen for my research article is the topic of vaping and e-cigarettes because I want to find out more about the chemicals and aerosols in vapes in order to help my reader better understand the connection between vaping and health risks. I am interested in this topic because vaping has seemingly taken over the youth of america. Everywhere I go, the grocery store, class, restaurants, even the gym, I see people using vapes and e-cigarettes. Having used these devices before and knowing how addictive they are, I want to research this topic for an audience of people who currently use or know someone who does use these devices.
Questions I need to find out:
Week 1: Narrow research topics Week 2: Begin/ gather research Week 3: Finish research and make outline of article Week 4: Begin rough draft of Week 5: Finalize rough draft for peer review Week 6: Finalize final draft Week 7: Publish finalized research article to eport Current sources: Lifework, as defined in Merriam Webster Dictionary, is the entire or principal work of one's lifetime. Lifework doesn’t have to be confined to a job or career field. I think it’s hard to pinpoint my lifework because I have only just become and adult and I feel like I’ve only just started my life. The one thing consistent with my life so far to where my life will be in the future, is helping others. I have always enjoyed helping people, whether it’s just listening to a friend whos feeling down, or helping someone up after falling. The current job I work now consists of helping people, similar to the job of my future. My lifework is to help people, not because I have to, not because I get paid to, but because it is in my nature. I work with the volunteer fire department in my hometown, every call I go on is because I want to because I enjoy helping others in any way I can. My job as an EMT is also about helping others, while I do get paid for helping people, I chose to work this job because I find it enjoyable. The career I hope to pursue as a PA is because I want to do that job. I want to help people because I enjoy it, it’s easy for me, and I don’t get sick of doing it. The best job to have is a job you like and a job that goes hand in hand with your lifework, which is why being a PA fits with me well. I'm excited to see where my lifework takes me down the road.
Growing up in a small town has influenced my intellectual life in a significant way. Since my first day of freshman year of high school, I wanted nothing more than to move away-far far away. I felt trapped in the same town, surrounded by the same people all my life, which is why I started my college intellectual journey at High Point University in North Carolina as a business major. I chose business because I knew it would get me a job anywhere, but a part of me wanted to do something in the health and medical field, but I didn’t know exactly what so I stuck to business. I was finally free, but I felt so lost. I hated my major and missed my family and had no idea what I really wanted to do as a career. So I moved home after my first year of college, got certified as an EMT and began working on a fire department. During my second year of college I went to a community college, taking my general education classes during the day, going through the Mass fire academy at night, and working weekends for a private ambulance company where I figured out the career path I wanted to take. I loved my job, helping people, problem solving, and working as a team. I looked at different jobs in the medical field, I wanted to do more than nursing, but medical school was too intimidating. When I found physician assistant I knew it would be the perfect career for me. I loved the idea of assessing patients, problem solving to find a diagnosis, and working as a team to treat the patients. This is when I decided to transfer to Plymouth my junior year as an allied health major. A few weeks into my first semester at Plymouth, my advisor suggested that I look into Interdisciplinary as a major. I had no idea what IDS was, but after looking into it, it fit perfect. Physician assistant schools have a lot of prerequisites, which aren’t all covered by just one major, meaning I would be taking additional courses outside of my allied health degree, so IDS made the most sense. Here I am today in my senior year, only a few months away from graduating and I can honestly say that becoming an interdisciplinary major has been one of the most beneficial choices I have made so far on my intellectual journey.
I have been using twitter as my personal learning network. I have found that twitter seems to be the most easily accessible tool for sharing information because I can search keywords and hashtags that are related to physician assistant studies and the medical world. Twitter has been helpful because I have been able to easily find people to follow based on who else is retweeting and liking the posts I do. Searching keywords and and looking at who is tweeting about things related to healthcare and medicine allows me to best find scholars in my profession. Just by using twitter’s search tools I have been able to find doctors, physician assistants, and students to follow. All of which tweet and like posts which are similar to my interests. It is also easy to connect with scholars by commenting on tweets or even directly messaging them, and to share my knowledge, experiences, and ideas with scholars just by writing and posting a tweet. Before creating my twitter, I knew I didn’t want to be all that public, as I am used to having no social media at all. Now that I have been using twitter for a few months I realized I actually like it a lot more than I expected. Twitter allows me to be active throughout my week, as I am checking it daily. I am constantly finding posts in my profession that are interesting to me. The more posts I see, the more profiles I am finding and following as well. I will continue to use my twitter throughout this. semester on a weekly basis. My big goal is going to physician assistant school after graduating from Plymouth State and a lot of the accounts I follow are physician assistant programs or students currently attending them. This has allowed me to gain insight on what its like for those students and how they manage their time and schedules while in PA school. So far I am enjoying using twitter as my personal learning network. I find it to be an easily accessible network that allows for easy communication and sharing of ideas and knowledge between scholars.
Pre Physician Assistant Studies Julia DeLotto The title of my program is pre physician assistant studies, designed for a bachelor’s degree of science in interdisciplinary studies. The program is a compilation of courses that can be found in the prerequisite lists in a majority of physician assistant programs. After graduating with my bachelor’s degree I want to attend a physician assistant program. The reason I decided to create my own pre physician assistant program was due to the fact that Plymouth State University does not have a major for the courses I need as prerequisites for PA school. The prerequisites for physician assistant programs are a mix of biology, chemistry, health, and psychology courses. Plymouth State University currently offers majors with some of the classes I would need but not all, and include many classes that would not be beneficial to my focus of study. Creating my own major will allow me to take the courses that will benefit me in the best way possible, while meeting the correct criteria for physician assistant programs.
Human Anatomy & Physiology I&II are essential to my major, as it will provide a baseline of knowledge of the cells, tissues, bones, muscles, organ systems that make up the human body and how they work together to allow the human body to function. Human Anatomy & Physiology Laboratory I&II are the labs that go hand in hand with human anatomy and physiology I and II, which will allow a further understanding of the content that I will be learning in lecture. General Chemistry I is an important part of my major because it provides an introduction to basic chemistry. Chemistry plays a key role in body functions, and is also the baseline for upper level chemistry classes. General Chemistry II gets more in depth on chemical reactions, many of which occur, in the human body. It also includes the molecules and other elements found in the body, which are involved in chemical rxus, and will also provide me with knowledge needed for biochemistry and organic chemistry. Microbiology is included in my contract because it will be beneficial when working with humans, as this class studies the functions of microorganisms and bacterias found in the body. Biochemistry is important as it studies chemical compounds that are found in living things, including the human body, and the reactions these chemical compounds go through. Organic Chemistry I: Organic chemistry focuses on organic compounds, which can be found in the human body, and also in pharmaceuticals, which will help give me an understanding of the makeup of the drugs prescribed to patients and how they will react with the compounds in their body. Kinesiology is a course that provides an in depth understanding of the joints in the body and the way in which the move when force acts upon them. Medical Sales: Lower Extremity Orthopedics studies the bones, ligaments, tendons, and muscles of the lower extremities. It focuses on common injuries to the lower extremities, how they are caused and also how to repair the injured joint or bone. Social Psychology is a course that will be helpful when working with patients. Patient contact is a big part of being a physician assistant and having a background of social behavior and will be beneficial to my job. Abnormal Psychology is also an important class to take for the profession I will be in because I will learn about diagnosis and treatments of mental illness. This information will come to use as I will be able to have baseline knowledge of recognizing disorders and understanding which treatments are available to my patients. Epidemiology & Evidence Based Medicine is added to my contract due to the fact that it focuses on diseases and how they are treated, specifically based on evidence. A large part of being a physician assistant is diagnosing and treating patients, this course discusses the history of disease and the process of using evidence based medicine. Applied Nutrition for Healthy Living goes in depth to discuss how nutrition can benefit human health and prevent diseases and offers information on healthy eating and a basic knowledge of how our body digests and uses the food we put into our body. Interdisciplinary studies can be defined as having knowledge in more than one academic subject area. The program I have created combines biology, chemistry, health and psychology courses. As a physician assistant I will be diagnosing and treating illness, performing patient assessments, assisting in surgery, and other assigned tasks. The classes I have chosen to put in my contract all offer knowledge that will be helpful to me when studying in physician assistant school. I used several physician assistant programs prerequisites to help build my contract and to ensure that I will be ready to apply to physician assistant school after completing my bachelors degree. 4 September 2019 Update: Looking back at my IDS application I feel really excited about it. This summer I took summer classes which helped me check off two more classes off my list of 'not yet taken' classes. I am still happy with all the classes included in my contract, although I may change out one or two courses. I have been doing a lot of research about which courses may benefit me the most and prepare me best for graduate school. All my current courses offer different aspects that will help further me as an academic and prepare me for what's to come next after graduating. After this semester I only have two more classes before graduating, and it is a little nerve-racking when I start thinking about the what comes next aspect. I am hoping that throughout this semester I will gradually become more prepared for life after Plymouth. Last semester in Intro to IDS, I wrote about my time at Plymouth and discovering Interdisciplinary as journey that I am on, and just because I am getting ready to graduate this year doesn't mean my journey will be ending. I learned last year about how interdisciplinary my field really is and I plan on continuing my interdisciplinary journey throughout my career. Over the course of this past semester I have learned a great deal of ideas, strategies and tools from this course. Coming into this semester I was nervous about being an IDS major. Not many people really know exactly what it means to be an interdisciplinary major unless they are one. Just from the past 15 weeks in this class a few of the most important takeaway ideas, strategies and tools I plan to take with me were eports, the difference between disciplinary/interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary, and open education.
When I heard we had to make personal eports for this class I was honestly really nervous about it. The idea of posting my work online for anyone to see was uncomfortable for me at first. Once I realized the positives to using eports I became a really big fan of them, and I am actually excited to keep using them in the future. Using an eport allows me to revisit my past work. So far I have only been using it for this class, and nexxt semester I will be using it for senior seminar, but beyond the IDS classroom I will continue using my eport. What really draws me to the idea of continuing using my eport is that it can act as a portfolio of all the work I have previously done. I can look back and see how I am growing as a person and a scholar, and I think that is a really important part of my education. I known once I graduate I will continue learning and my eport is the perfect place to keep my ideas and work stored once I no longer have someone to turn it into. The terms disciplinary, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary are fairly new to me, but now that I know them, they’ll continue to be in my vocabulary. Learning the differences between the terms made me realize how relevant they are in my life. In the future I am hoping to work as a physician assistant, meaning I will be working very much in an interdisciplinary field. Had I stayed an allied health major, I would have never understood what it means work intertwined in different areas. But with my IDS background, I understand the full benefits from keeping an open mind and working with other disciplines in order to solve problems, which I think is a big step up. The last takeaway from this class that I will keep in my mind in the future is the idea of open education. Before this class I never heard of the idea open education, and now I am a big fan of it. It makes a lot of sense to me and I stand by it. In the future, education and career wise, I know I will be using textbooks, scholarly articles and even videos to help me learn. So far in college I have spent a LOT of money on textbooks and hopefully with open education in mind I can begin to find online textbooks and sites to help me learn without cost. After all education is just a concept of sharing, right? Eports, disciplinary/interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary, and open education are only three of many ideas, strategies and tools I learned this semester that will stay with me past the IDS classroom. I am honestly thankful to have been introduced to these ideas, because they will definitely benefit my future in education and in my career. Thank you IDS for helping me build my future. |