Ideal Student

The ideal student an item of wealth and future of the nation he/she comes from, hope for the family, and pride of the institution. In relation to the family and the nation, an ideal strident thrives to give all of his abilities in obtaining the objective of his dreams and goals. Ideal student is not the one who follows the cultures of the schools that he/she is studying. The reason for this is because some institutions are ill-placed academically and have less changes of having a positive culture. An ideal student is the one guided by his academic call and allows him/herself to be guided through with open mind to adhering to what is required of him/her.

Requirements of an ideal student are readiness to follow instructions, ability to further read and research on what the teacher teaches in class, having positive attitude towards academic work, competitive nature to drive him/her to excellence, and good discipline. Following instruction involves assuming the teacher is all knowing and following his/her instructional guideline to the latter. With the ability of follow instruction, an ideal student gathers knowledge and time to read ahead of the teacher and expound on the class readings. If a student is willing to further read and research on the class readings, the student is regarded to have a positive attitude towards academics. Having a positive attitude for learning and studying does not mean that one would excel automatically; for ideal students, competitiveness and good behavior help them in developing  a clear mind that allows them to recall information learned (Bengtsson, 2009).

Adjusting To the Discourses

University study happens to be one of the most anticipated in a student’s academic life. The reason for this is due to the economies of scale that depend on quality and substantial education. As a student, adjusting to the system was not as easy as many students would have anticipated, me included.  The diversity of changes as compared to high school is associated with anxiety attacks and academic panic. The association of academic panic and the anxiety attack is attributed with the common notion that the university study is the boundary between dependent life and independent life. As of this tension, adjusting to university study cost me a big deal of effort in trying to keep up with numerous assignments from different course instructors, getting familiar with the most appropriate means of excelling in an environment consisting of students of diverse cultures. (Elaine, 2010)

The discourses of university study include numerous activities ranging from games to assignments and preparation for end-semester exams. In the university, different attitudes and formats of survival are numerous in students enter in social groups that are peer-steered. Many are the times when a positive peer-steered group starts off positively with the learning and assisting one another as the main goal and ends up becoming a social gathering where different norms are abused. For this reason, I spent most of my time familiarizing myself with the discourses while and not allowing peer- steered groups be a propeller to help me to do so. As much as assignments, exams and extra curriculum activities are associated with the university study, relying on peers can be damaging in terms of maintaining focus and abolishing academic distractions.

Preparation for university

Preparation for university is like preparing for a secondary interview where your qualifications are tested and used to examine your level of keeping up with the system. The university system is different from the high school system. In this atmosphere, there is too much independence involved and one is required to be prepared to survive the semi-solitude life (everyone for him/ herself). For this reason, preparing for university took me to social websites and trying to negotiate friendship with students who were already studying there and others who were headed to the same university as I was. With most students thinking that the only way to prepare for university is by having friends to look up to when they get there, they end up forgetting the purpose why they are headed to the university.

With prior knowledge to what one would be doing or studying helps the mind to set itself to the task (Cottrel, 2008). Otherwise, those students who prepare too much in terms of acquaintances and ignore this aspect end up having a difficulty time when it come to activities that have to be done individually. As for myself, researching on the type of literature that I was soon going to be submitted to helped me in my first few days in University in that classwork was no longer one of my worrying in adjusting and settling down.

Management of adjustments

In becoming a university student; I had to adjust to environment, scope and margin of activities, time, and culture in order to focus on my goals with an open mind. By adjusting to environment I had to deal with the physical, emotional, and psychological variables that every student was going through. The physical variables that one has to go through in the university included the differences in architectural design as well as the number of students present at any specific time. Emotionally, university work can be overwhelming especially where preparation for exams, handing in assignments, and beating deadlines as to be balanced with psychological health and general life. Psychologically, adjustment to university studies involves setting the mind to work according to the required and set standards. To do so successfully, it is management of time that is crucial and essential to focusing properly with the system (Cottrel, 2008  pp. 67-71).

To manage the adjustments that I had to make for university study, I developed a model code name ‘Successive Counteraction’. Successive Counteraction was a model that I developed that would mange the adjustments fro me in terms of observing time and recording my weaknesses. This involved a chart and a graph that included primary and secondary x and y axes. The primary x and y axes had goals going against hindrances while the secondary axes had achieved objectives going against failed objectives. The chart involved recording of PANAS (Positive-Affect Negative-Affect Scores) scores obtained from a set of objectives that I had put down. With the areas I was performing well in out of the list of high priority tasks, I had more time to focus on the areas that had negative scores. With this model, I was able to manage and monitor my adjustments in becoming a university student by keeping track of the variables of every adjustment and the requirements involved in terms of effort and resources (Cottrel, 2008 p. 23).

Ways in which I am engaged in my Study

University study involves the categories of persistence and endurance in making it through successfully. Persistence is achieved by finding ways to self motivate one and survive the challenges that are involved in the study. For instance, good performance is a gift that a student has to give to his parents and his teachers. The future of the nation depends on the student as well as the pride of the school. With studies getting more and more challenging as one advance with the university education, only persistence bails one out of the situation. To achieve persistence and competitiveness, teamwork helps to achieve this. Study groups and academic symposiums are other forms and units of achieving understanding essential for academic persistence.

Endurance is the ability to contain oneself and survive through hard times with the least of complains. The significance of endurance is in fruition of the objectives that push one to endure all challenges involved with the efforts applied (Conttrel, 2008 pp. 43-51). For this reason, my endurance was to survive the challenges of poor understanding at times, negative pressure from colleagues, and unfavorable research timeframes. Endurance in my case was achieved by merging hard work with positive attitude. With positive attitude, the level of understanding during my readings and researching was a notch higher. Hard work developed as a result of keeping a close assessment model with me at all times whose significance was to investigate levels of success against possible failure chances.

How to develop persistence and Endurance

In the university, monitoring of students by teacher is very minimal and at the same time very harsh. Discipline cases are the least of concerns that teacher, lecturers, instructors, and even principals are involved in. The university hosts a group of young adults assumed to be responsible and able to take care of the paths and make right choices. For me, university is simply the gateway to employment and the last phase of dependence life. With understanding of these two aspects, the challenges involved in the general task of learning are simply ways of the university life. To develop persistence, I observed myself in the shoes of a student who had already made it through university and in life. With this, I developed a positive attitude of looking at the bright side of every situation that involved unfavorable elements. To get through, them persistence was established and in surviving the negative effects of these elements my level of endurance was enhanced.