Brandon – STEM

Hello everyone. I’m Brandon, a senior here at UCA studying applied and pure mathematics with an emphasis in physics as a minor. I also do research in applied mathematics, so most of my day is spent doing math in some way or fashion.  However, when I’m not exploring the wonders of the mathematical world, I am usually doing something for the STEM Residential College.

A short digression:

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and a residential college is a community in which students live and go to classes with other students who all have similar majors. For example, just about everyone in STEM has a major that is, in some way, connected to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (this includes medical and other health fields too), and almost all of the students will have at least one class in STEM with their fellow STEM residents each semester.

All of that being said, I should probably say now that most of my posts are going to be heavily laden with information and examples about my experience specifically within STEM Residential College because STEM is what I know (though, not to say that I don’t know about the other residential colleges too).

I’ve been living in the STEM for three years now, my first as a freshman and the remaining two as an Advocate, so all of my college experience has been touched in one way or another by STEM. Throughout my years in STEM, I have learned more than most people would care to know about many subjects in chemistry, biology, and physics, and my knowledge in mathematics has caused me to completely lose friends and family within a few minutes of talking about what I do on a daily basis.

But that’s not really what this post is about, so instead I’m going to talk a bit about how being in a residential college has helped me be successful in my academic endeavors.

When I first came to college, I registered as a biochemistry major, my heart set on one day becoming a successful (and more importantly, filthy rich) doctor. I mention this to highlight the fact that I had set myself up for a very difficult next four years.

Within the first week of Biology I, Chemistry I, Calculus I, and an introductory writing class, I realized college was hard. Way harder than high school at least. Homework had to be done, studying was essential, and there was no one there to make sure I did everything I was supposed to do.

Luckily, I buckled down, adjusted to the changes college brought, and did pretty well on my own throughout my first semester (I had not really bought into being a part of the “Residential College community” and spent most of my time as a loner), but during my second semester, classes became even more challenging. I soon found myself struggling to maintain the same level of success that I had throughout my first semester, and this was disconcerting as well as a little disheartening as I had a bit of an ego my first year.

Things were looking bad, but around this time, I went to my first Science Night, a service learning project within STEM where students teach elementary and middle school students about science through various demonstrations and activities (I will talk more about these service learning projects in later posts).

At the Science Night, I recognized some of my classmates and began talking to them about our mutual disappointments in our academic performance that semester. Determined to reestablish a hold on our studies, we decided to combine our efforts and form a study group that would meet a few times a week to go over homework, lectures, and things of that sort, and this had an extremely positive effect on all of our grades.

This was the kind of experience that residential colleges like STEM, Hughes, EPIC and the rest are designed to promote; they take a bunch of like-minded freshman, put them in the same building, the same classes, the same service learning projects, with hopes that the students will work together to succeed academically.

Unfortunately, this process doesn’t always work out so smoothly. Sometimes a student will be struggling either in a class or in just adjusting to college but won’t know how to resolve their problems, so the problems just continue compounding over time. This is bad and usually ends with a very stressed and upset student who will probably not be very successful in their current or future academic endeavors.

But there is hope…for we are the advocates!

 

The STEM Advocates. There are more in the other residential colleges. Many more…

As Advocates, our main objective is to ensure that the above situation never happens. We are kind of like the residential colleges’ academic ninjas. We are a group of upperclassmen who have already gone through the residential college program, but decided to come back to help the next group of freshmen students succeed in those intimidating first semesters. Between the lot of us, we have taken just about every possible freshman level course within the STEM majors that UCA has to offer, and we are very well prepared to help incoming students.

I kind of went off on a tangent, but my main point is that being involved in a residential college really gives students greater opportunities to be successful their freshmen year of college. The program is specifically designed to help the students build lasting relationships and work together so they can excel within their classes, and even if a student is struggling within the program, the Advocates are always there to help push the student over whatever hurdles they might encounter. Residential colleges helped me get to where I am today, and I am very confident that they will help future students be successful too.