Author: sindero

Owen Sinderman, Undecided, from Seattle WA

sindero Uncategorized ,

Writing is something I have always had an interesting relationship with. On one hand I love writing in an informal setting regarding topics that I enjoy. In situations like this I can go on and on, the words naturally flowing from my mind to the medium on which I am communicating. On the other hand, writing in a setting such as school, in which my writing is judged and graded causes me to lock up and not be able to get anything down. Over the past several weeks in English 101 I feel as though I have developed more confidence in my work in such a setting through better understanding writing expectations and nuances.

A field in which I feel I have always struggled as a writer is in paragraph structure and flow. They are things that consistently trip me up as I am writing and break my flow as I worry about the very nature of that which I am writing in regards to how well it will be received. Structure of paragraphs I feel is something I will need to continue to work on but in regards to flow I feel as though this class has allowed me to improve greatly through things like Project 1.

It may seem obvious, but as a writer I always feel most at ease writing about things with which I hold experience. It enables my preferred method of writing – that being flow of conscious and lets me not worry too much about whether or not the product is “good enough.” This has not changed much in this class as the subject of my group work was stress, something I am all too familiar with. Something that this class has opened me up to, to a degree is the use of sources. I used to look at sources as just something I had to add to claims I was making in order to back them up but I have gained a new perspective on them as primarily sources of information with which to form opinions and claims. I am personally quite proud of the work I have done this quarter regarding collection and usage of scholarly sources such as journal articles and research findings as someone who has never been too keen on that kind of thing.

In the future I hope to be able to apply the things I have taken from this class, primarily in the fields of paragraph flow/connection and use of/finding of sources to inform papers I write. I am glad to have been able to come into this class with next to no expectations and come out pleasantly surprised with what I was able to get out of the experience.

 

Over the course of the projects in this class my partner and I have been researching the effects of stress, particularly as it pertains to ability to perform in settings of work. Our webtext seeks to inform the prospective reader of our findings and educate them as to how they can use the information in their lives. It can be found here: https://wp.wwu.edu/mgosresearchweb/

Project 7 – Owen Sinderman

sindero Uncategorized

~Prompt 1~

Our research topic was stress and how it interacts with the way that people are able to complete work, as well as workload’s effect on stress. In our research, we surveyed 40 people on this topic and found clear correlations linking high amounts of stress with a high workload, and a significant majority of participants stating an increase in difficulty regarding completion of work while under large amounts of stress. This lines up with research from other sources that we’ve found (all sources listed on poster) creating a definite tie between high amounts of work and difficulty completing work. This information is relevant and important for a variety of groups, including teachers, students, as well as those in charge of employees.

From our results I believe that teachers should try to more actively be conscious of the amount of work that they assign, as especially at Western with the shorter classes in the quarter system lots of assignments can stack up really fast leading to high amounts of stress among students leading to high amounts of difficulty completing work. It ought to be in the best interest of those providing education to make sure that the students are able to participate in learning and drowning them in work ultimately makes everything worse for everyone involved.

This responsibility isn’t only on those responsible for teaching however, as something can be said for students as well. Given our findings students should be wary of taking on too much work, especially those with jobs. Taking too many work-heavy classes can result in difficulty completing work for all classes due to the stress that would come from such an undergoing. Those with jobs need to balance that separate workload as well, as losing time to complete schoolwork can lead to a pileup of things to do which will cause stress and make things even harder.

Speaking of jobs, there’s something to be said for the validity of our findings in a work environment that those in charge of managing employees could serve to understand. Simply, overworked employees will produce lower-quality or slower work than they would given a smaller workload making things more difficult for both parties.

With all this said, everyone has a different amount of work that they would consider to be “too much” before they start getting very stressed so there is no perfect solution. At the end of the day, the most important thing to take from our research is to be fair to yourself and those who you are responsible for regarding workload, as it can snowball out of one’s control fairly easily given enough of it.

Stress Coping Methods Analysis

sindero Uncategorized
  1. Pierceall, Emily A., and Marybelle C. Keim. “Stress and Coping Strategies Among Community College Students.” Community College Journal of Research and Practice, vol. 31, no. 9, 2007, pp. 703–712., doi:10.1080/10668920600866579.
  2. This source investigates specifically the coping strategies used by those experiencing stress. It gathers information from 212 students through use of the Perceived Stress Scale. It argues that institutions should make it a priority to prevent stress. Among the results found were that talking to family and friends, leisure activities, and exercising were the most common methods of stress management.
  3. Quotes:
    1. “today millions of Americans including college students may be affected dramatically by stress.”
    2. “stress can interfere with students’ concentration and their ability to learn. However, on the other hand, some stress that students experience can be helpful and stimulating.”
  4. I feel as though this source is useful in our research because it provides insight into common stress management methods as well as the stress levels of those displaying said methods. This ties into our research of effects of stress on work ability of college students by allowing us to better understand where it’s coming from.

Sources of Stress Among College Students Analysis

sindero Uncategorized
  1. ROSS, SHANNON E., et al. “SOURCES OF STRESS AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS.” College Student Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, 1999, p. 312. Academic OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A62839434/AONE?u=googlescholar&sid=AONE&xid=3fb1aac9. Accessed 19 Feb. 2019.
  2. The purpose of this source is “to determine what sources of stress are the most prevalent among college students, and to examine the nature of these stressors.” This source uses information gathered from a 40 question survey distributed among 100 college students. The article argues that stress does not come from the source of stress, but rather from the interaction between the person experiencing said stress and the perception of the source of it. It also discusses how these sources are often amplified among college students, especially freshmen. Notably, the most common sources of stress found among college students were those of the intrapersonal variety, such as changes in food and financial habits.
  3. Quotes:
    1. “The top five sources of stress were; change in sleeping habits, vacations/breaks, change in eating habits, increased work load, and new responsibilities.”
    2. “College students, especially freshmen, are a group particularly prone to stress”
    3. “It is important that stress intervention programs be designed to address stress of college students. “
  4. I think that this article could be useful in our research because it provides good insight into the causes of stress among the primary age group of subjects of our study. In addition to this the article just generally provides a large amount of insight into the nature of stress and how it affects those experiencing it.