Reflection of "I am" and "I want to become" Statements 

During my first semester here at IUPUI, I was struggling with the transition from high school to college. In high school, I never had to study or put in much effort in order to get good grades. I knew that that was not going to be the case in college, so I had to quickly learn how to study. I have come a long way since the beginning of first semester. I have also gotten involved in everything that I have wanted to. I am active in Jagathon, and I absolutely love being a part of it. I am on the morale committee, so it involves lots of dancing! I am a PLTL recitation leader with the chemistry department. I did well in C105, and it is rewarding to help my students also succeed in the class. I am also brushing up on general chemistry which will come in handy for the MCAT. I volunteer at Riley, and it is honestly my favorite part of the week. I just get to go in for three hours and play with patients. I love seeing them smile and making their hospital stay just a little better. I am still doing well in classes as well. It is challenging at times, but I am so proud of my growth. 

Challenges that honors students experience (Group Project)

This project was a group effort. In class, we learned about cognitive biases. We took that knowledge and applied it to a challenge that student's often experience. We worked together to find a challenge that we all struggled with. 

We completed our project on the three P's, Productivity, Procrastination, and Performance. Through this project, I learned about many different study strategies to improve my performance and productivity. The related bias was the survivorship curve. Just because  study strategy works for someone else, does not mean that it will work for you. I also learned about ways to combat procrastination such as setting goals, compartmentalizing, and getting distractions out of the way. The related bias was the present bias. It is much easier to go hang out with friends now and study later than it is to study now and hang out later. Performance breaks off into many different avenues such as test anxiety, effective studying, mindset, and integration. The related bias was the ostrich bias. It is much easier to study what you know instead of the challenging stuff. 

Honors Contract/Elevator Pitch

Honors college students must either take an honors course or complete an honors contract every semester. This assignment was to practice drafting an honors contract. I created an honors contract for my PSY-B110 class. My project consisted of an annotated bibliography and a padlet on a common misconception in psychology. 

I have not had to complete an honors contract yet, so through this assignment, I learned how to do so. We also drafted an elevator pitch to propose to our professors to introduce our ideas for the project. This allowed us to practice speaking with a new professor. This made me more comfortable with approaching my professors. When approaching a professor about completing an honors project, it is important to come with ideas. This assignment allowed us to brainstorm project ideas and listen to ones from other students. Oftentimes, coming up with a project is the hardest part of drafting an honors contract because it is new to us.