10V The Guide to Success; Creativity

Creativity - the use of the imagination or original ideas, esp. in the production of an artistic work.

Before this week I believed that creativity referred to being good in the arts, such as painting or playing an instrument, but I was incredibly wrong. Creativity is more than just being artistic or having musical abilities. Being creative is stepping out of the box and taking risks. In college especially just having a degree in a specific major isn’t going to get you a job. So many people are graduating that same year with that same degree and are going to be going after the same job you are going after. So what makes you stand out? Creativity is what makes a person stand out from a crowd who all share the same characteristics. Being creative in this situation is taking risks and proving that you have more skills and potential that those who simply just have a degree. By volunteering is the first step to standing out. Once you have volunteered for a while, move up into a leader position. This is what jobs are looking for, they want leaders who have the necessary skills to do the job right. Creativity is a huge part of becoming successful. You need both motivation and creativity in order to reach success and get the job you want after college.

Two words I have learned this week are benign and malevolence. Benign refers to a mild type of character that does not threaten health or life; harmless. Malevolence refers to having, showing, or arising from intense, often vicious ill will, spite, or hatred. These are words I have looked up on a college vocabulary dictionary I found. I have not been learning new vocabulary words in my classes because of midterms; my professors are just reviewing the material we have learned the first couple weeks of the semester!

10I Spooky Decorating

Since this is the week of Halloween, Chase Hall (the hall I live in) decided to have a floor contest. The contest was a halloween decorating competition! The floor that created the best and spookiest decoration of their common area won a social of their choice. On tuesday night almost everyone on the 5th floor of chase met in the common room and began decorating the lobby. The RA’s on the floor, Daniel and Cheryl went out and bought us different types of halloween decorations to make our floor prepared for halloween and the contest. After about an hour and a half, our common room was totally transformed. We put streamers, fake blood, hands coming out of the ground and many more scary and spooky things all over the common area. It was a little creepy walking through there at night sometimes!


On wednesday during Hall Council it was announced that the 6th floor had one the contest. Even though my floor didn’t win the social, I still had fun decorating the floor and meeting more people who lives on the floor who I had not met yet. I hope chase has another decorating contest for another holiday soon!  

10B Dreaming of the Future

I have so many ideas and dreams for the future. Sometimes throughout the day I daydream and think about what my future would look like. I picture myself waking up every morning and driving to a school and teaching a group of 4-5 year olds the basics of reading, writing and imagination in a preschool environment. This is one of my biggest dream. Ever since my junior year I fell in love with teaching children in this age group. I was given the opportunity to teach for one day in a preschool like classroom though my child development class. I walked into the classroom about fifteen minutes before the parents would begin dropping their children off for the morning, I was both excited and nervous. As I played and taught my lesson plan to the class I fell more and more in love with this age group. Their eagerness, excitement and attention throughout the morning was amazing. I had never seen a group of children so happy to learn something new. As I left the classroom at the end of the day I knew this was something I wanted to do with the rest of my life. My biggest dream of mine is to have my own classroom in a school system and teach and develop the minds of those children who would be enrolled in my class. I think this career wouldn’t feel like work to me. I would be able to create fun and exciting lesson plans not only for the children to enjoy but also for my to have some fun too. Becoming a teacher is a dream I would love to achieve and could see myself doing for the rest of my life.

Senior cheerleading team I coached last season 

Another dream of mine is to become a cheerleading coach/choreographer. I discovered this is something I enjoyed my freshmen year of high school. My town has a youth cheerleading league that cheers for the youth football team. My coach would select a few girls from every grade and assign them a team to help out with and help improve their skills. I was selected to coach the senior cheerleading team which consists of 7th and 8th graders. This opportunity opened my eyes to how much I could help and improve those girl’s skills. I could also relate to them a lot because many of them who were in 8th grade, wanted to try out for the high school team, and I was in their position the year before. Coaching was probably one of my favorite things I did throughout high school. Many of my teammates and fellow coaches always talked about how we would love to coach our own teams some day or open a cheerleading gym and focus more on the competitive aspect of cheerleading. Opening up a gym or just coaching a high school or middle school level team in the future is another important dream of mine. Cheerleading has been apart of my life since I was in middle school and I have loved every single moment of it. It has opened my eyes to so many different experiences and opportunities I would have never been able to witness without being a part of a cheerleading team.  

These dreams of mine are very realistic and achievable. Right now I am just beginning my path to becoming a teacher and still cheerleading. I am just merely four to five years away to achieve my dream of becoming a preschool teacher. This year I am taking a year off from coaching since I am at school and don’t have a car on campus. I am hoping that next year I can start coaching the team I have been with for the past couple years again. The future as I dream it would be perfect. I would be doing the two things I have fallen in love with throughout high school which is teaching and coaching cheerleading.

10A Midterm Review

At first the thought of creating a video about a certain aspect of the Southern community worried me. I had no idea how I was going to create a 5-7 minute video about Southern. After I sat down and brainstormed some ideas I quickly narrowed down topic ideas to Southern Cheerleading. I felt better after I choose a topic that I have a personal connection to but I was still worried about hitting the 5-7 minute mark on the video. As I began to videotape practices and games, the time limit became the least of my worry. I focused more on the content of the video rather than the length and how I was going to connect Southern Cheerleading to the university. When I submitted my draft, I was shocked that I was halfway done with my project, having been so worried with the time limit before.

Overall I thought I did well on my video midterm project. My topic was spot on with going along with the theme of Southern spirit since cheerleading is all about showing school pride and spirit. My video opened with a video taken at the homecoming pep rally. Instead of showing the whole performance, I decided to take clips from the video and put music in the background. I thought that this was a very good way to start the video, I was able to grab and attract an audience. After my opening, I started by showing pictures and videos of Southern Cheerleading at various events and games. I then placed slides that discussed what Southern Cheerleading was all about, videos and pictures followed to prove my points.  I would also put in interviews from girls on the team in these sections to then again provide support for my slides. Though I did have four people interviewed for my project, I wish I was able to incorporate an upperclassmen interview, but the video I took for it didn’t work when I imported it into iMovie. The interviews I included though, were very good. They answered the question perfectly and helped make my video more exciting.

Technology wise, I have very little issues with using iMovie. It was a little tricky at first figuring out how to place videos and pictures into the program, but with the help of some friends and classmates who had experience with iMovie I was able to successful make my video and submit it on time. The only issue I had with sound during the project was the last interview with the cheerleading coaches. I took the interview after the game and there was a lot of background noise that made it difficult to focus on what Alyssa and Emily were saying. I played around with the sound settings and boosted the volume and tried to reduce the background noise. The video is still kinda hard to hear, but it was the best I could do. Another issue I had was with my upperclassman interview. For some reason when I recorded the video on my phone, it wouldn’t allow me to import it into iMovie. It was very frustrating and I tried everything I could to resolve the issue but was unsuccessful.

If I was given more time to work on this assignment I would have wanted to incorporate the competitive aspect of cheerleading. Not only do we cheer at home football and basketball games but Southern Cheerleading performs an intense two and a half minute routine that they perfect until nationals. Including this in my video would have shown that cheerleading has evolved into a competitive sport that also still keeps in mind the traditional cheerleading.

Overall I think I deserve an A on this project. I worked hard and continuously to provide a quality

finished video. I started with a clear beginning that grabbed the audience’s attention, then listed the qualities that Southern cheerleading has and then tied it into why cheerleading is important to the university. I enjoyed working on this project over the course of the past couple weeks!

INQ Midterm SCSU Cheerleading Final

9I Sonia Sotomayor's Exciting Visit to Southern

On Monday night I was able to experience a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Supreme Court Justice of the United States Sonia Sotomayor in the Lyman Center. Sonia was asked to speak to first year students this year because Southern choose her book My Beloved World as the common read for incoming freshmen. Students in Inquiry classes were asked to write down some questions for Sonia to answer during the interview and some few lucky student’s questions were chosen for Sonia to answer.

Before the interview started, many students submitted their six word memoir to the school and many creative memoirs were chosen and shown on the projector as students were finding their seats. Sonia appreciated everyone’s six word memoirs and admired many of them. As Sonia answered questions, she gave advice that was specifically for first year students who were the majority who attended her visit. One thing she told us to do is take all different types of classes. She encourages all students to explore courses we may not be comfortable with. She said that this will help expand our knowledge and make us all smarter individuals.

Sonia Sotomayor’s visit to Southern’s campus will be one I will never forget. She talked and gave out so much useful advice for all first year students to think about and incorporate into their lives. Her visit to Southern was very important and exciting!

9B Striving for Good Grades

I was extremely proud when I pulled up my grades on banner web this past week. When school first started I told myself that I needed to work hard and do very well in all my classes if I wanted to gain admission to the education and psychology department which requires your GPA to be above a 2.7. Also for cheerleading, I am required to keep my grades above a C- or I will not be able to practice, cheer at games or perform at events. My coaches always tell us that the reason why we are at Southern is to receive an education, so our grades always come before cheerleading. With these two motivational forces in place, I need to stay on top of my school work in order to pursue admissions into those departments and continue cheerleading at Southern.

I am happy to say that my lowest grade at this point is a B+ and my highest is an A. So far this semester I have been very successful in my classes. I am taking the necessary time to study, complete homework and assignments on time and handing in quality work. I am finding that the classes I am taking right now are at the perfect level for me. I am being challenged yet I am able to understand the course work and still receiving good grades.

For the rest of the semester I am going to keep up the same momentum I have been putting into my school work so far. The way I have been studying and dividing my time to do homework has been working perfectly to my advantage. A goal I want to achieve is not have any of my grade fall below a B-. As the semester comes closer to a close, more of my professors are going to begin throwing more assignments and exams at students, but I believe I can continue to do well as the semester closes and some of my classes begin to get harder. Another goal I have is to study and do extremely well on final exams. I always struggle with Final exams, so this year I am going to pursue more time into studying for my finals than I had ever done in high school.

So far I have had a very successful first semester. I am going to continue to do well in my courses through the rest of the semester and do well on my finals. I am very happy with my midterm grades!

9A How Do I Think Critically?

Critical thinking is a word I have been hearing almost everyday in Inquiry and Media since the first day of school. Not knowing too much on what critical thinking is about, I looked up the definition and found that Critical Thinking is a process that leads to skills that can be learned, mastered and used. After reading this definition, I know why critical thinking is so important to college students. In order to be successful throughout college you need to be able to think critically to learn and master the material that is being taught in all of your classes. After college when students begin to venture out into the working world, they can look back and use the critical thinking skills that they learned in college and apply those skills to their job or career. Not only is critical thinking important during a student’s years in college, but it will also benefit those in their future jobs or careers.

Critical thinking is more than just learning the material to do well on a test or exam, its about understanding the bigger picture. Throughout high school, I struggled in almost every math class I took. Many classes friends and I would wonder why we have to take algebra or trigonometry if we were never going to use it in our desired career. Looking back and thinking critically about math, because I am now enrolled in a math class, that math teaches us how to process through problems and end up finding a solution. Maybe I won’t ever need to know the square root of a number in a future job after high school, but the process and the problem solving skills I learned in math are what I will actually use in the future.  

Southern believes learning the skills to think critically is so important that they require first year students to enroll in a critical thinking course that is incorporated with their Inquiry class. Media in everyday life is the class I am currently enrolled in. In this class we examine many different kinds of ads. Not only do we notice the obvious important concepts of the ad, we also dig deeper and look for the hidden meaning that we would normally look over. Last week we were asked to choose one company who we believed expressed a strong sense of ethos (arguments based on emotions). In our presentation, we were required to choose an advertisement from that company that related to their ethos. When we talked about the advertisement, we had to do a thorough analysis of everything that was present in the ad. Not only did we have to choose an ad, we had to think “outside the box” and dig deeper for a meaning. This process is important. This class is teaching me to not just look at the obvious, what is important requires a little more thought and examination.

Learning how to think critically will help me with the rest of my time here at Southern and in my future job or career. The skills I am learning in my classes will benefit me in the long run. Thinking critically is hard work, but with a little practice I believe every student can learn the necessary skills to become an expert on critical thinking.

8V 10,000 More Hours till Mastery

Mastery - comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject or accomplishment

Mastery is a very important word, especially in college. In order to master something, you must practice for over 10,000 hours to be successful. Most people think that once you go through your four years of college, that you are a master at what you majored in. But according to the theory of the 10,000 hour rule this is not true. It takes about ten years to achieve mastery in any field, academic or not. When one practices for 10,000 hours or ten years, they are considered a master.

Two words I have learned this week are Abrogate and Fortuitous. Abrogate refers to cancel, destroy, revoke, or void something. Fortuitous meanings happening by chance. Learning new vocabulary words weekly is helping me become a better reader and writer because I am able to strengthen my vocabulary implementing these words into my academic life.

8I Double Major? Who's my Advisor?!

Last friday, I attended an informational meeting about the education department which is my first major. As I sat and listened to what requirements I needed in order to gain acceptance into the program, I was also told that I would have to decide on a second major. I sat and debated what program would benefit me in the future. As I read more into the requirements to be accepted into the department they suggested that early childhood education majors consider psychology as their second major.

That following Tuesday, I stopped by the psychology department in the lower level of Engleman to find out more information about this program. As I walked in a friendly face greeted me and asked me what I needed help with. I explained to the lady that I was considering psychology as my second major and wanted to know how I would make an appointment with an advisor in the psychology department. She then handed me a blue sheet and explained that when I had a meeting with my education advisor, I would have her sign this sheet and then I would be assigned an advisor for psychology.

After I visited the psychology department, I walked to Davis Hall to make an appointment with my education advisor so I could figure out ASAP what classes I needed to take for psychology. Signing up for an advisor in the education building was very easy. I walked straight into the building and approached a bulletin board which listened the majors offered in the building. I then looked for early childhood education and then picked a day and time which was convenient for me to meet. My appointment is next Tuesday, October 22nd and 2:20!

I am very excited to meet with my education advisor and make sure I am on the right track for the classes I need to take in order to gain acceptance into a program I have dreamed about being a part of. And as soon as my meeting is over, I can finally figure out who my advisor is for psychology!

8B Lessons from Sonia

A New Beginning, Time to Shine

“As you discover what strength you can draw from your community in this world from which it stands apart, look outward as well as inward. Build bridges instead of walls.” - 
Sonia Sotomayor 

 

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor was the common read assigned to freshmen this year at orientation over the summer. Since 2009, Southern has assigns incoming students a book to read the summer before they start their first semester to open their mind to college level reading. The common read is assigned to also prepare first year students to think, write and listen to what others have to say about the book.

I think Southern choose My Beloved World as the common read this year because there is so much we can learn from Sonia Sotomayor's story. Throughout her childhood she experienced so much at such a young age. Her father was an alcoholic, who died early, she lost her best friend who was her grandmother and she lived in one of the poorest areas of New York. Though she faced so many hardship throughout her childhood, she never gave up. Sonia was the first to go to college in her family and ended up becoming very successful when she finally became the Supreme Court Justice of the United States.

All first year college students can look at Sonia Sotomayor’s story and learn the act of persistence through her experience. College is never going to be easy sailing, there are going to be times where many students consider dropping out because their classes become too difficult. Whenever a student begins to feel like things are too difficult to push through, they should all think back to Sonia’s story and how she overcomes many difficult times throughout her childhood. Whenever I have a difficult time here at school, I am not going to give up, I will get through everything I need to get through just like Sonia did in her life.

First year students can take the lessons of hard work and persistence from Sonia Sotomayor's book and apply them to their first year.  I learned so much about never giving up from Sonia’s book. I plan to apply all of what I learned through her book and put it towage my first year experience here at Southern!

8A Strive for A+ Work

When I first began blogging, I viewed a few blogs just to make sure I was doing everything correctly and to get some ideas. Now, 8 weeks later, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on how to create and compose blogs that will result in A+ work. I’ve now decided to look and explore into other students blogs who demonstrate quality A and A+ work.

The first blog I looked at was Stepphhr’s blog (http://stepphhr7.blogspot.com/). When I began looking through some blogs her stuck out the most to me. Her blog is simple, yet it sticks out due to the bright pink she has as her text color throughout the blog. As I began reading her blog posts, I realized how much detail and effort she puts into each and everyone of her blogs. Even though the minim word count for the blogs is 300, she write more than that and in great detail talks about the topic that is assigned. One post specifically I thought was A+ work was her post 7B True Strenght (http://stepphhr7.blogspot.com/2013/10/7b-stronger.html). She starts this post with a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche which states “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”. Starting with a quote that relates to what the post is about is very beneficial. As you write about the topic you can go back and talk about how the quote related to what you are writing about. As I read more into this post, she talks about her strenghts and weaknesses are throughout her first semster at school and talks about ways she could improve for the semesters to come. She talks about an experience how she failed her first math exam and how it was a huge wake up call. She goes into more detail to talk about what she learned from failing her math exam and how she could improve and do better next time. This is an A+ blog because she created a good story with detailed and related it back to her life and how she can improve for future situations. Her story grabbed my attention and was very strongly written.

The second blog I looked at was Samantha Monaco’s blog (http://samanthamonaco.blogspot.com/). Her blog stuck out to be because of her layout, which was so much different that anyone elses blogs. Instead of scrolling down to see older post, all her past blogs are posted on the side, which is very convient. One of the post I clicked on was 6A The Person I am Today (http://samanthamonaco.blogspot.com/2013/10/6a-person-i-am-today.html). In this post she talks about a challenge she had faced in her life. What grabbed my attention to this blog was the photos she posted, which were all of her with different family members. This helped create a mental image of the people who she was talking about in her post. She talks about the issue she faced with her brother’s drug and alcohol use. Even though her family faced such a hardship with her brothers drug use, it made her family stronger and closer. She also ends her post by saying “So if you're reading this and you're someone who went through a similar type of challenge I want you to know you're not alone. Don't let peer pressure make you do things that you know are wrong. Don't lash out and follow that person in your families footsteps. Instead I want you to turn their mistakes into lessons for yourself and see how better your life will be!” This was a very insparation way to end this post. Not only did she talk about how she overcommed difficult things that happened through her childhood, she encouraged others who are facing the same issue that their is hope.

These post exemplify A and A+ work. They incorporate specific things such as quotes, pictures and stories that relate to their lives that strenghten their blog overall. These are things every blog should put in their posts!

Midterm Draft

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8sQa2w5vp4&feature=youtu.be

7V "Failure is the Road to Success"

Failure - a lack of success

In our society, to be a failure is never a good thing. People frown upon failing. As children we learn very quickly through school that receiving an F on an assignment was bad. Many kids would be grounded or get certain privileges taken away because of failing to do well on an assignment. We are taught that failing is a bad thing, that we should be scared to fair but in reality failing somethings can be beneficial. When we fail at something, we should reflect on what went wrong and fix those mistakes. By looking back and seeing what worked and what didn’t we learn from our failure and mistakes. Learning from our failure leads to future success.

I find it ironic that the basic definition of failure is a lack of success, which can be true, but I believe failure can actually lead to success. As I said before when we fail, we learn from our mistakes and make sure we figure out what worked and what didn’t work. Failing is all about trial and error in my eyes. In order to be successful you have to fail at least once to reach a status of success.

7I Southern's Spirit!

Homecoming has been a tradition for over 30 years here at Southern! Homecoming week is very important to all students and faculty members to come together to support the athletic and club sports team. On Thursday October 10th, Southern hosted the annual pep rally in Moore Field House. Many students attended the pep rally with hopes of walking away with the many prizes that were being given away such as t-shirts, TV’s, and money. I attended the pep rally for a different reason, to perform with the SCSU Cheerleaders.

For weeks we practices and perfected our performance for the pep rally. We wanted to show the Southern community all that we are capable of because most students only see us at games cheering where we are restricted in what we can do. At the pep rally though, we were safely performing on mats which we are allowed to throw up stunts and do some pretty amazing things. Our main reason though for performing at the pep rally was to show our support for all the sports teams there. As a cheerleaders, we are basically the face of the university, we represent all that Southern is. It was in our best interest to perform a cheer where we could get everyone pumped up for homecoming!

The Homecoming pep rally was an amazing experience. My high school had pep rally’s but they were nothing like Southern’s! I am very excited for the homecoming football game where hopefully we the football team can gain another win!

7B Learning From Mistakes

College has taught me that I am not the strongest reader. Many times when a professor assigns a long chapter reading, I find it difficult to focus or to even understand the material that is being discussed. I also often skip over by accident what is really important and focus on other details that are not as important. I walked into inquiry one day confident that I had a good grasp on the reading, but as I stared at the questions on a pop quiz I realized that I could  barely answer any of them. A couple days later when we got back the test I had received a 4/10 which counts as an F.

Even though I had failed my first pop quiz on inquiry. I was determined to read more carefully next time and try to understand the material better. Every time we were assigned articles, I read them more carefully and take a lot of notes on the important details that might be discussed. I also try to find more examples and quotes that back why the information may be important. The next time we got a pop quiz in inquiry I was a little nervous to fail again, but with the help of my notes and reading the articles carefully I was able to receive a 76/80 which is an A.

Though this is a minor failure, though I learned a lot about myself as a reader. From that point on, whenever I received a reading assignment, I take the time to read it and to take good notes. And whenever an article is confusing, I make sure I pay attention in class discussion to better understand the material. Even though I had failed, I learned from my mistakes which will help me develop more throughout college.

7A Its Okay to Fail

Working at the YMCA for over two years has really opened my eyes to how children react in certain situations. Everyday after school, I would report to Highland Elementary school and play games and activities with children grades 1-6th. I was assigned to be the head counselor of the first graders, and I learned quickly that to them losing was very devastating. Two kids in my group had a very difficult time dealing with losing whenever we played a game, their names were Patrick and Martin and they were identical twins. Whenever we would play a simple game of tag and one of them got out, they would erupt into tears and would become very angry. It was extremely difficult to calm both of them down when they got out at the same time. Looking back to those times when Patrick and Martin would get out in a game reflects that they thought they  weren’t good enough and that they have failed.

Children, especially in elementary school are terrified of failure. Teachers and parents frown upon the word because in our society failure is negative. At a young age children begin to learn that failing isn’t good and if they ever do fail, they will get in trouble. Children learn this through school by the grading process that is usually introduced in third or fourth grade. Students are graded on their work and effort by the letters A, B, C, D and F which we all knows stands for failing. Receiving an F on an assignment or a course reflects bad on the student. Even though school doesn’t support failing, many teachers are willing to help students who begin to fall behind with extra help and support to get them where they need to be. School can be a safe place where students can fail but learn from those mistakes through teachers and guidance counselors.

Failure is a very controversial word. Many who have failed in the past had found themselves learning from their mistakes and then becoming successful later on in life. JK Rowling, the famous author of the Harry Potter series announces a time that she had failed at a commencement speech at Harvard University. Though JK Rowling admits she failed right after college, she learned from her mistakes and that made her the person who she is today, the author of a very important and power series in popular culture. Though failure is looked at by a negative characteristic, it can be beneficial in the end. Failure is part of human nature, where we learn and adapt to things that go as planned. Without failure, everyone would be perfect and no one would be able to learn from their mistakes. If JK Rowling didn’t fail, she would have never became a successful novelist.

The act of failure should be taught and discussed to young school age children. Elementary students especially should know that failing is part of life and it is a way of learning from your mistakes. If Patrick and Martin knew at the time that everyone fails sometimes and it is a way to learn from your mistakes they probably wouldn’t have gotten as upset. They would’ve taken it as an opportunity to learn how to get better at a game that they got out in. As a counselor of those two boys, I tried my hardest to explain to them that losing and failing is part of who we are, it happens to everyone and you just need to embrace it and move on.

6V Lets be Persistent!

Persistence -  firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.

Persistence is a very good characteristic to have. Throughout my college experience I will need a lot of persistence to complete difficult homework assignments and study for hard tests. As every college student begins their first semester, everyone starts to develop some value of being persistent. Especially for first year students, this is a very good trait to develop early. College is so much different than high school, the work and the test and much harder. In order to complete these tasks you must have persistence to push through the difficult tasks and yet still maintain a good grade. Persistence is very important for all college students to have and develop throughout college, it will also help them after they have graduated and start looking for a job.

Motivation appeal is a word that I learned this week through reading my media textbook. This refers to a feelings-based, or affective, approach by a persuader that targets the audience’s emotions, needs and values. Another word that was mentioned in the chapter that I didn’t know beforehand was instrumental values which means, values that guide the meaning by which we live. We have not gone over these words in class lecture yet, but when we do I already have a pretty good understanding of the word and will be able to develop my understanding further.

6I Just Keep Moving!

The SCSU Fitness Center is the only fitness center on campus. It is located on the second floor of the Adanti Student Center. The Fitness Center is opened Monday through Thursday 7am to 10pm, Friday 7am to 8pm, Saturday 9:30am to 4:30pm, and Sunday 2pm-7pm. Students can apply for a one week free trial to use the gym to experience how the center is ran and if it is a good fit for them. After the one week free trial, the cost to be a full time member to the gym is $60 for one semester and $120 for both semesters. The Fitness Center is much cheaper than the gyms that are located around which may charge $30-$40 a month to be a member. The SCSU Fitness Center is located right in the middle of campus and is much cheaper than most gyms making it the best fit for students and faculty members.

Along with your membership to the gym, all classes are included. Anything from Zumba to Yoga is included free with your membership. Most private gyms make you pay additional fee to participate in classes, but not the SCSU Fitness Center! A class I am interested in taking is yoga. I have always wanted to get involved in yoga because I have heard it is very relaxing and regains your focus. This class would be very useful whenever I am stressed out in college, I could take a quick break from my school work, run over to the gym and take part in the relaxing class. Yoga runs every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 5pm to 6pm.The Fitness Centers encourages students to join the gym in order to life a healthy lifestyle. They offer a wide range of machines from treadmills to ellipticals and is usually never too crowded.

The Fitness Center is great facility for all members of the Southern community to use. Though I am not a member currently because I run outside and practice daily for cheerleading, as the temperature begins to drop I may consider becoming a member!