Oh finals! I have the biggest love/hate relationship with you. I LOVE that the semester is just about over but I HATE the stress that comes with it. As a STEM major, all I have is exam after exam after exam. Sometimes I really regret not majoring in art so I could just paint for my final…but that’s not what I would love to do. I love medicine and I won’t let these required classes stop me from studying that. Even if I have to retake every last one of these classes I will, because I want it that bad. This semester for me was bad, not just in this class. It was definitely an oops semester for me, and it’s going to be hard to recover from but I got this! This blog is going to be half reflection of the semester and half me trying to amp myself up for this final. But really though, the thing that is stressing me out most is not knowing what topics are going to be on the final. One studying technique that I am going to try is take all of the practice exams, combine them, and take it as one exam… over and over and over again. I feel like that would be the most effective way of studying all of the topics and having examples for them in a one stop shop. I have this final and 2 other ones that I am not excited about taking at all. But again, we all got this! And if you don’t have this you can always learn from your mistakes. I just wanna take a second to thank the professor… Thank you! You definitely gave us a lot of resources for this class and opportunities to improve our grades and I appreciate that so much, you have no idea. You don’t really find a professor who really wants to see the student learn and succeed in their class (at least I haven’t found too many at UNM) especially in a topic like chemistry. So again thank you, and for everyone one else struggling with finals that are sitting in the library with me right now studying, YOU GOT THIS! Don’t ever give up even if other people are going faster then you. Slow and steady always wins the race (A little finals motivation for myself too). Thank you for taking the time to read my struggles throughout this class, I know I talked a lot about my failure but it wasn’t ALL bad. I wish you the best in the future and maybe get to meet ya’ll soon. 

Best wishes,

Marisol Sisneros

Oh Exam three, how I really wanna cry after taking you. This one was by far the hardest one so far! I am not really sure why this one was so hard for me to do. I have a couple of ideas. Idea number one is maybe because I could have studied a little more to get a better grade. Ideas number two is that because I am not doing so well on the rest of exams it is putting a lot of pressure on me to do well on these last exams and that makes my nerves at an all time high. The last idea I have is that I didn’t work out the practice exam as much as would’ve liked to before I took the exam. I did the best on Exam 3 because I worked out the practice exam a few times beforehand which I did not do on this exam unfortunately. Now that I am typing all of these ideas out, I whole heartily believe that it was a combination of all three of them that gave me the grade that I got. For the future I will definitely try to work EXTRA hard on those things to preform well. We only have 1 more exam left, the final…. I’m freaking out! I started studying almost immediately after I took this exam and it wasnt a lot of time, maybe a few days and I am realizing how much I need to study. It’s a ton! The only thing that I really wish we had in this class was a study guide for the final exam. Just a paper explaining what topics we have to study and what kind of questions we will have on the final. I really enjoy doing  these because it gives me an opportunity to really release my stress on paper and start new. On a different note, something that I am really struggling with this semester is comparison. If you’re a student, you know what I mean. I feel like everywhere in college there is so much comparison of accomplishments throughout the students. That sucks! We all are on different paths and it takes other people longer to do things but what matters is that we’re all trying! Just a little reminder, you’re doing amazing sweetie! Okay now back to studying for this final! 🙂 Thank you for reading, chat with you later about how stuDYING is going.

Until next time,

Marisol Sisneros

Okay so… for some reason i’m having such a hard time in this class. I don’t know if it’s because I am struggling learning from an online environment or if it’s because I am just completely not getting the material. In high school, I had the option to take an online government class, (I really did not enjoy government or history or anything like that) so I gladly took advantage of that. Throughout high school I kept a very good GPA and took pride in the grades I had, but for some reason I STRUGGLED in this online government class. From beginning to end I had a problem with how much freedom I had with watching the lectures whenever I wanted and with not having to actually go into class and learn the material. When I got into college I was in a whole new world with figuring out you could get a full degree online if you wanted! I knew I struggled with online classes because I can get lazy at times but I still decided to take this class because it was what fit best with my schedule. Because I am not diligent about watching the lectures and having to teach myself which is something i’m not used to, I think that if I retake this class after this semester I will most definitely take it in person on campus. I definitely am not making an excuse for not performing well, I should have applied myself more to this class but now I at least know for sure my learning preference when taking a difficult class like this. I am saying this because Exam 2 did not go well at all. This makes me nervous because on Slack a lot of people said that they did way better on this exam then the first one. I did better on this one but not anywhere near where I want to be. We haven’t gotten the grades back on this one and that makes me nervous. I also did not apply myself as much as I wanted to because I got distracted with the other classes i’m taking, with all the assignments and exams they’re giving. It gets really crazy at times and hard to focus on just one class. And onwork with COVID it is hard to prioritize school during this time. On the upside, I tried a few test taking tips to calm my nerves like I mentioned in my last blog post and they kind of helped me well taking the exam. One of the examples are to sit with both feet planted into the floor and if you start to feel nervous about not getting a question try to wiggle your toes and focus on that to relax your mind. Another one I learned is to tap and count each of your fingers to your thumb until you feel calm enough to really concentrate on the questions on the exam. I will try to apply myself more for this next exam. I will update you on how that goes. Thank you for reading, good luck! You got this.

Until next time,

Marisol Sisneros

Hi everyone! This is my second blog post of the semester and I’m excited to catch you up on my life as a General Chemistry 2 student. So to say that I’ve been having a hard time is an understatement. Working during COVID and having a first hand look at what really goes on inside of the hospital has been really affecting me in a personal way. I did not submit my first exam as result of being over worked, I understand that I need to prioritize my studies a bit more but I let the ball drop on this one. Looking on the app Slack of our class I noticed a lot of you struggled with this exam. I really do not want to let this hold me back from continuing to try my best within this class. I always have a really hard time with the first exam because I do not know what to expect from it. Every teacher has a different test structure style and I have never taken this class before so I was very nervous and struggling a bit.I wish that upgrading would’ve been an option in this class.  I think that this should be an option in every STEM class because it allows us to really observe the exam in detail, go back and rework the problem to understand it without have the major pressure of taking a test. Like I said in my last blog post I really struggle with taking test and how nervous I get to take them and I feel like this really effects my score.  For my next exam, I am going to try to make my notecard more extensive and detailed and also prepare to take it on time. I will also try different study techniques to experiment the different ways to study and how effective they are. Since taking the exam I have also researched different ways to calm my nerves about test taking and I will be practicing them on the next one. Thank you for reading and reflecting with me! I will talk to you guys after exam 2 and let you how it goes! Wish me luck 🙂

Until next time,

Marisol Sisneros

Hello! Welcome to my blog! My name is Marisol Sisneros and I am currently a Junior (Sophomore) in College with hopes and dreams to study medicine in the future. Studying medicine has pretty much always been my dream since a young age, and has been something that really inspires me. Unfortunately, as a pre-med student we have to go through SO MUCH schooling before actually obtaining that main goal. Keeping that goal in mind while taking these classes, I really hope to excel in them and set myself up for success! When registering for this class I was so nervous about the material and what we’d be learning. Since this whole COVID ordeal I wasn’t sure how different this class would feel. In general chemistry 1, rumor was, that general chemistry 2 was way harder and that a lot of people struggle with it because they are all new concepts than learned before. I hope that the concepts that are expected to be learned in this class are ones that build off of the ones taught in General Chemistry 1 because I really enjoyed that class and those topics took a lot of work to understand. Something that I have always struggled with in all of my classes as a college student is my test taking abilities. There is something about exams or even just quizzes that I find so incredibly intimidating. I used to dread it every time I had to take one. I have learned to control it for the most part but usually when the same information is presented to me in a homework assignment vs when it is given in an exam I am able to do much better and tend to not stress as much. Another thing that I really need to work on is my studying skills. Once I got into college I realized that I never really was taught how to study actively and efficiently. Over the past few years, I have been able to gain a few tricks that help me study better but I really need to work on finding different study techniques and really find a couple of them that work for me. If anyone has any tips or study habits that you know work for you let me know! It would be very greatly appreciated. Outside of school, I am currently working as a patient care assistant at Presbyterian downtown and it has really introduced me to the world of medicine. I have never really enjoyed work or what I did in the past but now that I am in the hospital I really enjoy work and I definitely know that medicine and taking care of others excites me and that keeps me pushing forward reaching my goal. I’m new to this whole writing about me thing but I’m glad this is an assignment because without it I wouldn’t be able to reflect on things and really process why and what I am doing this semester! That’s all for now folks, nice to meet you!

Until next time,

Marisol Sisneros