Author: crfranco

If I Could Bottle It Up, I’d Bottle It Up

crfranco # # # #

As I pack up my dorm room and take finals in all my classes, I start to choke up thinking of all of my expectations coming into this year and how they were met, how they were not and how my freshmen year was so much more than I could’ve ever imagined. I think of the person I was when I moved here in August and I’m blown away by how much I’ve grown as a student and person and how much one year could mean to me.

I expected my life as a student in college to be the same as it was in high school which was absolute trash but it turned out to be quite the opposite. Coming to Ole Miss and away from the toxic environment that was my high school has changed me as a student for the better. In this year as a student I’ve realized that caring about doing my best will produce better results than caring about being perfect ever will. If you would’ve told me in high school that I would have a 109% in Business Calculus in college I would’ve laughed in your face because I almost failed math in high school but because I’m focusing on truly learning and doing my best I’ve become better in subjects I never thought I could be good in. I’ve also realized that reading one essay that may have seemed insignificant to the rest of my classmates was the first time in my life my feelings about the elite education system and my past in it were validated. I knew from one week of college my identity as a student and person had shifted for the better but it wasn’t until that essay that my feelings were validated. That one essay picked by Mrs. B for my Writing 102 class was “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League” by William Deresiewicz and that one essay manifested an entire semester’s worth of assignments and research. I became a better student because of this essay and this research because I learned that being a good student isn’t how high my grades are but being a good student means doing the best I can and taking full advantage of education as a way to grow in every aspect of myself.

An actual screenshot of my math grade that I would’ve never expected to happen!!!

As for me as a person in college I expected to grow in the usual ways everyone talks about like dealing with being away from home for the first time, handling being on my own to take care of myself, etc. and obviously those growth spurts happened but I grew in other ways that seem far bigger than those. I came here in August so excited to live with my roommate and for the year that we would live in our little shoebox of a dorm room we would make a home and a countless memories together but that didn’t happen in the slightest. My roommate hates being at Ole Miss and has wanted nothing more than to leave Oxford from the minute she got here and that affected us living together because she barely left the room all year and claimed it as hers alone even though we live together. Going to college away from home was hard and not having somewhere where I could truly call home was even harder. I feel like I’ve lived in limbo but what kept me centered was that I had a new life here and I loved it so much that not having one physical place to go to didn’t matter because I was creating a home for myself in everything and everyone around me in Oxford.

I created a home in the law school Einstein’s for it brought me bagels and a study spot for the entire year. I created a home in the connections I’ve made with my teachers especially my EDHE teacher who has become my mentor that I couldn’t have survived this year without. I created a home in 3 am drives to the Lamar Park neighborhood with one of my best friends that always seem to fix whatever’s wrong in our lives. I created a home in Kappa where I’ve met so many lifelong friends and been given so many incredible opportunities like representing my chapter at Leadership Academy. I’ve made a home in every person and every thing that has made me love Ole Miss and my life here.

I think that for every event that’s happened in my life there’s a song that goes with it for one reason or another. Other than the fact that as freshmen as a whole I think all of us will think of Closer by the Chainsmokers when we think of our freshmen year. The song of freshmen year for me is Bottle It Up by Sam Hunt because there a few other things I think of when I think of wanting to bottle up a time and keep it forever. In this one year alone, I’ve learned that other people have experienced the same thing I did when I was in high school, that I’m a better student when I just focus on doing the best I can, that even though I wanted a roommate who would create a home with me I can survive without it and that sometimes home is where you let your heart rest instead of your head.

(Every freshmen ever when we hear Closer)

I read this quote the other day and I think it sums up how I feel about my freshmen year ending.

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”
I’m going to miss my friends I met this year that I now can’t picture my life without. I’m going to miss the teachers who’ve guided me along the way to make it through this year. I’m going to miss my favorite study spots, restaurants, and hangouts because some of my best memories this year were made in them. And I’m going to miss who I’ve become this year the most because who I’ve become this year is the best me I’ve ever been to date and for who I am at this moment I will never have so much to look forward to again in my life. So I will miss who I am right now because as of right now I’m still a freshmen and the best is yet to come.

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Don’t Peak in Your First Year in College

crfranco

In my first year of college I expected to breeze through my classes, make new friendships and keep up with my existing ones and go out and party. Like a lot.

I definitely didn’t do horrible at all in the school realm but I definitely didn’t breeze through. For one I underestimated how hard my classes would be and how much I would have to give up to make sure I passed those classes. Obviously it takes time to figure out when to keep on going at it and when its time to give up and just go out with your friends for a little bit because that extra cram isn’t going to do anything. I didn’t get that at first but I got and it made everything so much more enjoyable.

Making new friendships was the easiest part of my first year and I thank God every day for the people he’s placed in my life just in this first year of college. I love pretty much all the friendships I’ve made this first year but there are some that just don’t work and that’s okay too. I’ve come to realize that you don’t have to stay friends with the girl you sit next to on your first day in sociology class. It may have been a great friendship when you’re in class together but if it’s not a friendship you see leaving the classroom that’s okay. I’ve learned that the best way to enjoy your first year is to surround yourself with people that fulfill you and bring joy to your heart no matter where you are.

As for keeping up with existing friendships… that’s

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Daily Write 4/26

crfranco

Consider the connections between high school writing and college writing.  In today’s daily write, make a list of “advice” to high school students coming into college composition.  What would you tell them?

This Was Supposed to Clearer

That it’s been ten months since I started my new life here in Oxford seems impossible. My friends laugh at my wonderment, saying that it feels like we’ve been here for decades already. But this first year has passed by in a flash. Soon, my life as a student will be over and I will be left standing here wondering where all the time has gone.

I head down to the conference room of Ventress Hall where there’s three administrators sat before me waiting to start the interview. I make sure I’m sitting straight and am engaged in everything they say. I wait my turn and answer each question the best I can. I breeze through each question comfortably until the question “What would you tell an incoming freshmen to do to make the most of their first year?”

That question stopped me in my tracks. The only thing I could think of is time itself and stopping to actually live in that moment and savor the time I have here at Ole Miss.

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Daily Write 4/24

crfranco

Read your first entry on your blog (August 22nd:  Why did you choose the University of Mississippi?) and your first semester’s final reflective post.  Pull the most significant lines out of each and type them at the top of today’s daily write.  Now, reflect on these.  What do you notice about the differences between the two?  The similarities?  How do you feel you’ve grown/changed/transitioned since then?  As an academic?  In your social life?  With friends/family?

“Ole Miss has everything I could want in an university and makes me content that I’m doing everything I can to ensure that I will get where I want in life.”

“I shook that fear that I might look like I don’t have everything figured out and put myself out there and that shows me that Writing 101 has benefitted me in ways four years of prep school never could.”

This whole year has helped me grow as a person but it’s also showed me that by being here at Ole Miss I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Ole Miss is where I need to be and no matter if I was supposed to go to another school or not I ended up where I was supposed to.

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Unit 3 Reflection

crfranco

What advice would you give next year’s FASTrack Writing 102 students about the research unit (annotated bib AND causal argument) based on your experiences in the last 7 weeks?  Please include specific examples of your “lessons learned.”

I would tell them to choose a topic that actually interests them instead of trying to pick a topic that seems easy to them. Just because it seems easy doesn’t mean they’ll actually like it and this whole unit takes up a lot of time so if they hate what they’re researching it’s going to make it so much harder. I used the same topic from the synthesis essay all the way to the casual argument and the fact that I was so interested in the topic made it so much easier to sit down and do hours worth of research and then write the 2000 words for the paper. I would also tell them that anecdotal evidence is totally okay and just as credible as another evidence. As I researched I continuously found anecdotal evidence and it freaked me out because most of the examples we were shown were very number based and not at all really experienced based. By talking to Mrs. B she showed me that my evidence is just as credible and just as good as any other research.

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Unit 2

crfranco

As a reflection for Unit 2, reflect on at least one of the following (approx. 250 – 500 words):  

1. What did I learn about my cultural myth and the associated issues by composing the annotated bibliography? How did I learn it?  Why is it important?  What will I do because of it?

2.  What did I learn about my writing and research skills by composing the annotated bibliography? How did I learn it?  Why is it important?  What will I do because of it?

3.  What did I learn about myself by composing the annotated bibliography? How did I learn it?  Why is it important?  What will I do because of it?

I learned that the elite education system is harming its students by making education about how much they can achieve rather than how much they can grow and develop. It leaves students with emotional problems ranging from extreme anxiety and depression to eating disorders and stunted intellectual curiosity and passion. Education has become a way to accumulating more wealth and power and forgotten that it is about teaching young people how to think on their own and grow into independent responsible adults. Knowing how the education system is failing its students is important because as soon as it is recognized we can find a way to fix it. I will show why as a whole the education system needs to be reevaluated. Merit shouldn’t only be based on how well a student does academically and extracurricularly, it should be about the qualities they possess that make them human as well. Once education shifts from only seeing success in terms of grades and achievements and looks at success in how well they actually grasp what they are learning and how much they actually think about why they are learning it only then will they be on their way towards a better system. I learned how much easier and fun it is when I research something I actually care and want to know about. I learned that it’s easy to find research about a topic if you know how to look for it and that there’s a difference between reading to understand and just reading. It’s important to give myself time to do things and everything is easier when I feel like I’m not rushing myself. Doing this research has helped me figure out what works best for me when it comes to outlining and actually writing a paper.

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Daily Write 3/29

crfranco

At this point I’m feeling very good about the research paper. I just started writing my introduction but I feel confident in it and just really need to build it up by choosing the right words and sentences to make it easily understandable and grab the readers attention. This is the first paper that I’m not worried about writing because I am confident in my knowledge of the topic and my claims on it. I also very much enjoyed researching this topic so it makes actually writing it so much easier to write.

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Daily Write 3/20

crfranco

My research as shifted by becoming more general yet still very specific. I was very specific on only focussing into one area of why the elite education system is flawed but as I did more research I decided to shift into more than one area. My research definitely didn’t change my opinion on what I was researching but further increased my reasoning for feeling this way about the elite education system. There’s a lot of research about education but finding research specific to the elite education system was harder but using my source’s sources helped me get exactly what I needed.

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Daily Write 3/6

crfranco

Looking at other people’s annotations to see how they did theirs helped clear up how you write them for me the most. I was confused on how to write one effectively so seeing good examples of how others did theirs was most helpful. Getting feedback also helped because I need to work on strengthening my reflection and becoming more specific without being too wordy.

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Unit 1 Reflection

crfranco

Look over your writer’s notebook and daily writes from the past four weeks.  Reflect on this unit.  What did you find challenging?  What did you find essential to your success in this unit?  Think about your process work.  Was using a writer’s notebook for homework reflections and process work help as you drafted your paper?  Did the readings support your success in this unit?  What about the kernel essay peer review?  Or your conference with me?  Did you visit the writing center?  What ultimately helped you “get it” during this unit?

I found this unit challenging in the beginning because I had forgotten how much process work goes into writing a successful synthesis essay. At first I had way too many sources so I had information overload that made it hard to write something that didn’t bounce around from one point to another without true direction. My writer’s notebook was most helpful for me because from the beginning I saw that I had the most information and most interest on the education section so that I could narrow it down to what information I could use and what information I couldn’t use. What helped me “get it” the most was looking back at my synthesis essay from first semester so I could see where my strengths and weaknesses were there so that I could make this paper better. I looked at where I went wrong on the first synthesis essay and tried to correct them in this paper. I also looked at the points that Mrs. B marked out as good and tried to make sure I exemplified them again. I also drafted and redrafted several times before I was finally happy with my essay and after I thought I was done I would compare it to my first draft to see if I had improved enough for my liking.

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