Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Writing Assignment 1

English 111 should be a good class for me to get back into to my academic writing style, as I have taken some time off since high school. Through careful planning and time management skills, I should be able to balance my other classes by following and sticking to a plan based around the syllabus. After reviewing the syllabus I have come up with a plan to succeed based on its structure. I am taking 13 credits this semester, and should not be going too crazy with this course on top of my regular schoolwork, as long as I stay on top of things.
After reviewing the syllabus, I definitely noticed a pattern in the flow of work. The pattern that I noticed is reading and responses, a quiz once a week, and generally having some sort of major assignment, or at least, a component of a major assignment, due at the end of the week every week. I plan to do my readings, responses, and my quizzes during the regular school week. I will tackle the larger assignments (essays and research mostly on the weekends because I will have a fair amount of time. I will also work on the larger assignment components during any other spare time I have as needed. With this strategy, I should be able to keep up with my workload and maintain a low stress level by not trying to do everything at once.
I am currently enrolled in 13 credits for this semester which is technically full time, but not so much to make me melt into a pile of stressed out college student. I am currently a freshman attending the UAF main campus here in Fairbanks. For my first year I have decided to get a lot of the core courses out of the way. Last semester I accomplished knocking a few of the core classes off my list with good grades, giving me a good confidence boost as well as a boost to my GPA. I hope to accomplish this again this semester to maintain a high GPA for when I move up to upper level courses. I hope to have another successful semester not only in this class, but in my other classes as well.
I hope this diagnostic essay has helped let everyone learn more about me, my role as a new student at UAF, and what kind of person I am. By studying the syllabus, I believe I have a good overview of the class will run, and I believe I have come up with a good plan to achieve this goal. As a relatively new student, my goal this semester is to manage my workload in the best way I can to avoid stress. I am looking forward to a great semester in this online course!

Monday, January 26, 2009

About Me!

Hi Everyone!
This is my first blog experience so please bear with me...
My name is Robert Hook. I currently reside in Fairbanks, AK in a cabin not too far from the UAF campus. I was born and raised here in Fairbanks and have lived here all of my life. I am excited to test my academic writing skills during this course. The only anxieties I really have about this class is making sure I keep up with it as it is an online course, but I feel that through good time management and my handy day planner I should not have a problem with making sure I don't let my online coursework fall by the wayside. I took a lot of upper level english classes in high school but it has been a little while since then so I hope that my writing abilities are still up to par and if not, this course should help me get back on track. I really enjoy reading and writing. My favorite two authors are Albert Camus and Charles Bukowski. I hope this little bit of background information gives you and idea of who I am and where I am coming from. I am looking foward to progressing through this course!