Monday, January 19, 2015

Week 1 & 2 BSHS 355: The Gossip Column?

It's been an interesting couple of weeks, although I am happy to say that the first week of this course, I managed to get 100% on all of my assignments. Yea.

The interesting portion; however, has been working with one of my classmates. I know that even I can be difficult at times to work with, especially lately in dealing with the passing of a few family members. Here's the thing, there's occasionally difficult and having a rough patch and then there's blatantly obstinate. This gal is definitely more on the blatant obstinate side. It's been incredibly frustrating so far to deal with her. Yes, this is again the group projects that are the mandatory part of our education.

It has felt that every step of the way, she has had some contrary opinion and argument. I can safely say that most of the group is starting to show signs of annoyance regarding it. Today, I pretty much had a gut load of her negativity and politely encouraged her to review our charter (the agreement we made as a group) to read up on all the agreements we made. I was very polite and respectful about it, but also matter of fact. She hasn't responded back and honestly, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, at least the 'drama' has settled for a little bit.

Overall, this class has been relatively easy so far. There is a big project due at the end of the course which is something I'm not quite looking forward to, but, like anything else, it can be done.

I'm glad to say that one of the gals in my previous classes is someone who I still keep in touch with. Thankfully, there's someone out there that I can share my direct feelings with and not feel like I'm going to get penalized for being frustrated.

No tips for today. Well, maybe just that when you feel yourself getting worn out from all the work, it might be time to allow yourself a break from whatever you are working on.

Friday, January 16, 2015

PDF to JPG questions

A small bit of information to share. For those of you who are new to posting and keep a running post of assignments or other things that you do online, here's a great little helping tool.

I convert my assignment files, which are usual docs to pdf and then to jpg to upload them to these posts. There's several ways you can do this. Depending on which computer I'm using will depend on how I upload. Right now, I'm sitting at my desktop, so I end up using a website that converts pdf to jpg for me. The cool thing about this website is that for every 5,000 conversions, they plant a tree. The website is called pdf2jpg.net. I love this site! It's quite simple. All you do for your word docs is save them as a pdf file and then jump over to that website and upload the pdf, convert, then download your converted jpg files to whatever you are wanting. It's fabulous! Go check them out if you haven't already.

If you are looking for software to download, AVS is a great one. I downloaded their paid version a while back. I think it was around $50 at the time and I swear by them. You can add in watermarks and all kinds of things as well. I'm definitely a big fan of them because I use it for school and for my business.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Back into action

Okay, I went silent for a bit because I took a break from class. I needed it. Three classes taken so far and A's in all three, but oh man. Life just happens and you need that break sometimes.

I just finished my first week in BSHS 355 (Delivery of Human Services) at the University of Phoenix. Week 1 wasn't too bad. The assignments were the usual 8 substantive posts (although this instructor wants 100 words and a peer reviewed APA reference for all). We did our Learning Team Charter, which is basically our group agreement paper with all our contact information. Finally, we did a worksheet about four different populations whose needs are unmet, problems they face, and programs out there that offer services for them. In actuality, that assignment took me two days to finish because I struggled to understand what the instructor wanted for it. If you are like me at all, sometimes, simple directions aren't quite so simple to understand.

Anyhow, it's been a relatively easy first week, even though I'm finding that one of our group members is not so willing to go with the flow and get along nicely with others. I guess, though, if you don't have a bit of turbulence, you  don't grow, right?

So here we sit, so far, I have 100% in the group. I found out from a previous class member of mine that even though I'm pulling A's, it's not as common as I was thinking. Yes, these courses are much harder than I originally anticipated. It's very important to make every point count in these classes, given that most of them are only 100 total points. Each point you miss literally drops you a full percentage point in the class, so missing more than 5 points drops you to an A-. Maybe I should clarify with this and mention that I have 1 A and 2 A-'s. That's okay though, my GPA is still at a 3.78. My goal for graduation is to graduate with a 3.5. I'm certain I can pull that off, I just have to stick to my guns.

So my tip for the week then is this:
If you start feeling like you are overwhelmed and just can't handle things at the moment, ask for a break. They allow you a break of two weeks or more as long as it is approved through the school, If it's approved, it doesn't count against your financial aid, so be SURE and communicate with your academic advisor. Cheers all!

Hugs and love!