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First-Year Insight Fall 2007 |
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A Newsletter for Families of First-Year Berry Students |
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Contents |
Office of First-Year Experience | |
| Home Stretch | Box 508 | Director: Katherine Powell |
| Fall Highlights | Berry College | Assistant: Noreen Salmon |
| Grand Finale: Your Guide to the Last Weeks of College | Mount Berry, GA 30149 | 706-236-1707 |
| Important Dates | ||
Home Stretch Caps Busy Fall for Freshmen |
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On October 25, approximately 200 first-year students participated in Home Stretch, a celebration hosted by First-Year Mentors and Berry College President Stephen Briggs and his wife Brenda Briggs. The party, which featured inflatable games, ice-cream sundaes and music, gave students a chance to reunite with their first-year seminar classmates, celebrate their accomplishments and gear up for the last half of the semester. The highlight of the event was a pie-eating contest among first-year mentors. Senior Heidi Fishman won, earning $100 for a class social for Dr. Jay Daniel’s advisees. |
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| Brenda Briggs serves ice cream at Home Stretch |  |
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| Friends reunite at Home Stretch | Mentors face off in pie-eating contest | |
Fall Highlights |
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First-Year Service Day, September 8, 2007 Following breakfast provided by the Bonner Center for Community Service, students dispersed throughout Floyd County. They cleaned up public parks, staffed the concession stand at the Rome Boys and Girls Club, and leveled headstones and mulched paths at historic Zuber Cemetery, among other projects, before returning to campus for a cookout and ice-cream social. You can see pictures of the day on the FYE webpage. |
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| Students volunteering with Adopt-a-Highwway take a break on First-Year Service Day. | ||
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Can I Kiss You, September 17, 2007 The college chapel rocked with laughter as Mike Domitrz, founder of the Date Safe Project, engaged students in a humorous and interactive discussion of dating foibles and miscommunication between the sexes. The atmosphere became deadly serious, however, when Domitrz shared with them the story of his sister’s rape. Mike’s presentation on safety and respect gave students much to think about and to discuss further in their first-year seminar classes and beyond. |
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| Rebecca Phillips and Jimmy Story display "Can I Kiss You" tattoos. | ||
Maya Angelou, September 27, 2007 Berry freshmen, along with more than 3000 other students and citizens from Rome and Floyd County packed the Forum Civic Center to listen to an address by noted author and poet Maya Angelou. Angelou's memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was the summer reading book for first year students. Angelou began by singing an old song, “God Put a Rainbow in the Clouds.” She then told tales of the unlikely heroes in her own life and reminded her audience of the parents, teachers and other mentors who had been rainbows for them, and that they, too, could be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud. A video of Dr. Angelou’s speech can be seen here: http://www1.romenewstribune.com/multimedia/rome/video/472 |
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| Dr. Maya Angelou speaks at the Forum Civic Center | ||
Grand Finale |
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No doubt you’re been looking forward to spending a relaxing Thanksgiving holiday with your student; unfortunately, for many students Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the most stressful time of their college career so far. The two weeks between Thanksgiving and the last day of class are often the time when major papers and assignments must be turned in, and of course, exam week is just around the corner. While you can’t entirely eliminate the pressure your student is feeling right now, you can help him or her to keep things in perspective and finish the semester strong. Seasoned first-year seminar instructors and first-year mentors offer the following tips for overwhelmed students and their families: |
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| Plan your time carefully. Make a list of what is due when and assign a deadline to each stage of each project. Create a schedule and stick to it. | ||
Martha Van Cise |
Begin preparing for finals as soon as possible. Don’t wait until the weekend before exams to begin sorting through a semester’s worth of notes, quizzes and handouts. Get organized now. Martha Van Cise, Director of Berry’s Academic Support Center, recommends taking some time to evaluate how much time will be needed to study for each test, and budgeting one’s time accordingly. She suggests students start studying for their hardest classes first, as these will require the most total time. Junior Jessie Faulhaber agrees that early preparation is critical: “Start studying as early as possible and take it seriously. Even if you just look over a couple of pages a night, it's less that you'll have to look over later on.” Senior Kelly Bearden suggests that students “over prepare rather than under prepare. Prepare for the type of test.... and practice writing out answers if you are going to have an essay or short answer portion.” |
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| Use Study Time Productively. Dr. George Gallagher, Professor of Animal Science and First-Year Seminar instructor notes, “A lot of students spend a great deal of time trying to “figure out what will be on the test”. That concept is great, but only if you are the one writing the exam. Instead of spending huge amounts of time and energy trying to figure out what will be on the test, try simply studying the material. If you make the assumption that everything is fair game, you will be more prepared to use your time effectively.” Gallagher advises using previous tests and exams as a guide, but cautions against relying on them exclusively: “Far too often, if you spend your time studying old exams, you are forcing yourself to learn the question not the topic of the question. Take the time identify the topic of the questions.” |
Dr. George Gallagher |
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Set Realistic Goals. Many students who began the semester with a goal of achieving a 4.0 GPA have had to revise their expectations, but just because an A is out of the question, doesn’t mean that student shouldn’t approach every final project and exam seriously and try to achieve the highest outcome possible. |
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Stay Healthy. Residence Life Coordinator Lindsey Taylor notes that although “students see pulling an ‘all-nighter’ as a rite of passage,” and often rely on “energy drinks” like Red Bull to see them through the next day, “studying is not effective when the student isn’t getting enough rest. Students tend to agree. Jessie Faulhaber, a nursing major, advises, “Even if you don't think you have time, you need to make sure you eat something that will help provide the energy your brain will need from all that heavy thinking. Foods high in protein are especially important.” |
Jessie Faulhaber |
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Make use of academic support resources. Encourage students to make use of every source of help and support. Many professors offer review sessions outside of class and others devote some class time to preparing for the exam. Students who have begun studying before these sessions will gain the most from them. Likewise, studying with other students is most effective if it supplements studying on one’s own, and an organized, focused study group in which everyone has a designated assignment to complete will be much more productive than a disorganized gathering of friends to shuffle through notes and share worries. Tutoring, which is available to all students through the Academic Support Center, is most effective when the student begins working with a tutor early in the semester and continues on a regular basis; however, students may still be able to benefit from joining a tutoring group at this point. For student’s who need occasional assistance when working on a difficult paper or struggling to understand a difficult concept in math or science, drop-in tutoring is available at the Math Lab (Science 348) the Biology Tutoring Lab, and the Writing Center in Evans 233. |
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Get Help Managing Stress. No matter how well-prepared a student is, stress is unavoidable at this time of year. Often, simple remedies such as a good meal, a good night’s rest or a relaxing break with friends is all that's needed to reduce the tension and put the student back on track. But can stress can also have significant physical and emotional effects. Berry's Counseling Center and the Health and Wellness Center can offer help for students experiencing such stress-related symptoms as insomnia, an increase or loss of appetite or an inability to concentrate. |
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| Take time to unwind. While finals week can be particularly stressful, it also offers a break from the usual class routine, and students who manage their time well can take advantage of the downtime to do things they don’t have time for during the rest of the semester. For Junior Josh Etress, “Finals week is the best week of college. Not only is there no class, but there is a ton of free time. I would encourage every student to take a break from their studies and do something out of the ordinary with their friends. If you study too much, you might have a breakdown.” | ||
