Semester Volunteering

Collo Hrs: 6

This semester, I will be volunteering with the TLC Women's Center in Elizabethton again. They are awesome and doing great work for the community......my community!

The most recent project is remodeling the center to included a kid friendly area which is really a "kiddie town" modeled after our lovely city of Elizabethton. A local expert furniture maker is making miniature digs for the kids which will include a covered bridge, a school, an ice cream shop, a town square, a general store, and a church.

For my contribution, I will be painting wall murals for the space. I am including 6 volunteer hours for the day meeting with director to discuss needs and then several hours spent designing and researching the murals. I am really excited about this project and can't wait to help out!

Conference Fun!

Collo hours: 4

In looking ahead to my future career goals, I attended the recent Social Work Professional Development Conference held on April 14th. The career fair was huge with a large varieties of places represented....I had no idea that the Social Security Administration hires people with a Psych degree! Even though I am majoring in Psychology instead of Social Work for my bachelors degree, I plan to get a masters in either social work or counseling as becoming an LCSW or LPC is the quickest way to do face-to-face work with people without having to get a doctorate degree. The various workshops offered a lot of great info... The preparing for Social Work Licensure laid out the specifics on Tennessee requirements, and the workshop about Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy talked about how many different disorders can be helped using this model.
I want to pursue a career focus in Trauma, helping people recover after a traumatic event.

Survey Time

As requested, I completed the SAIs to gain Collo class time. Give me that hard earned hour Dr. Heddon!

More Talking

This semester has been brutal! Interestingly enough, the classes I am least excited about always turn out to be really good and the opposite holds true for the ones I am looking forward to. This semester those classes were Philosophy as Conversion and Behavioral Neuroscience. I was dragging my feet about the philosophy class thinking it would suck. However, it turned out to be a great class. Most of the assignments were interesting and the material got me thinking. Conversely, I expected Behavioral Neuroscience to be interesting, but it was the worst class I have had while in college. It was an online course that turned out to be an exercise in memorizing a 600 page book and speed testing instead of actually learning something! There was literally no supplemental materials provided. The only grades came from 16 quizzes and 4 exams which were timed to give exactly 1 minute per question and using notes or the book was prohibited. The exams covered 3 chapters (120-140 pages each) and there was no way to narrow the scope of material. Also, there was zero feedback. If you missed questions on a quiz or exam, you never knew which one. How are we supposed to learn if we don't know what we missed?

After struggling through the first few quizzes and Exam #1, I message the professor for help and received a rude unhelpful response. So, to boost my study skills, I decided to go to Dr. Dula's "How to Study" seminar. Again, I found it interesting and helpful. Even though I am a good student who thought I was an effective studier. However, this seminar made a lot of practical sense and has helped me become a better student. I found the test strategies extremely helpful. The most important tips I came away with are:

1. Don't highlight in the book, but rather write out the important info on another sheet of paper to help consolidation to memory.
2. Prime your brain of important info about reading it before bed and again right before the test.
3. Study by paragraph instead of by chapter.

I'm glad I went as this seminar helped me improve my confidence and pull an A in a really difficult class.

Talk Tastic

In an effort to get ready for Grad School and beyond, I decided to check out Dr. Chris Dula's seminar on Career Planning. Dr. Dula is an interesting person and his seminars are never boring. What I most like about him is his obvious desire to help students. As promised the seminar did enlighten me on a few points.....

1. The importance of taking the GRE several times.
2. The different types of GRE.
3. The importance of doing activities to stand out among other applications.
4.  The available campus resources for exploring careers.

All-in-all, it was a well spent hour!

Volunteer Spring Break

Over Spring Break week, I volunteered to score the application packets for the incoming fall Midway students. I was honored to participate in this process and take it very seriously as I know what the Midway Honors Program has meant to me. Without it, I would likely not have been able to pursue my Bachelor's degree. Also, beyond the obvious financial benefit, the program has offered me so much more. The support, encouragement, and family-type bond that is gained have been priceless building blocks to my success as a student. Additionally, I know that the academic standards being demanded by the program will pay-off in countless dividends in my future endeavors. So, the chance to aid 10 other people in reaching their college dreams was an exciting and humbling experience. Each candidate packet has an application/resume, cover letter, 3 reference letters, and an essay that are read and scored using a provided rubric. I spent an average of 1 hour scoring each packet for a total of 10 volunteer hours.   

Making the Money

    

Saturday I logged in 8 volunteer hours at the TLC Community Center's annual fundraiser. It was a yard sale shoppers dream come true. A multitude of local churches donated a huge quantity of items for the sale. The items were marked at yard sale prices so that everyone could participate. Of course, the larger items like a nice lazy boy chair and a barely used dining table and chairs flew out the door first. Despite the cold turn in the weather, there was a steady stream of shoppers throughout the day. For my part, I did what I do best.....TALK!! I got to flex my customer service skills to entice shoppers to dig deep and give for a worthwhile cause. All the money made over the 3 day sale will be used to buy much needed food items for the community soup kitchen meals being served at the center every Tuesday at lunch time. The program has become an instant success in a very short time, feeding an average of 200+ adults and children each week. Since the center is strictly donation funded, these fundraisers are a crucial part of helping so many in our community.   
     Besides yacking, which is my specialty, I also helped customers with loading items,

 cleaning, organizing items, and also transporting donated children's items including: coats, clothes, shoes, and toys to a church in Bristol for their children's van outreach ministry. These items were given to the center from area schools who built-up a substantial amount of items throughout the year in their LOST and FOUND. Since, these items were sized too big to be included in the center's MOMMY MART, the director wanted to share them with another helpful program. 
     Any items  not sold in the sale will be made available to the mothers in the TLC parenting program. These moms attend class and volunteer at the center in order to earn "MOMMY MONEY" which they can use to purchase baby items like clothes, diapers,  wipes, bottles, toys, and even big items such as highchairs, swings, and playpens in the Mommy Mart. The center is a blessing to our community and I hope to help there as much as I can.