Characteristics of a Critical Thinker

We all have our flaws. We gossip, boast, and over exaggerate. While were fulfilling our ego we can often deny ourselves intellectual growth and opportunity. We may not always want to apply critical thinking skills, but we should have those skills available to be employed when needed.

We are thinking critically when we use: reason over emotion, require evidence, ignore unknown evidence, and follow evidence where it leads, and are concerned more with finding the best explanation than being right analyzing apparent confusion and asking questions.

When I employ the characteristics of a critical thinker, it is mostly when I am driving. I try to be rational, self-aware, and discipline. I am discipline and self-aware in the sense that I stay within the speed limit, I stay off my phone, and I am always keeping constant awareness of my surroundings. I recognize my own faults while driving and use them to enhance myself as a driver and to furthermore make the roads safer. I try to be rational when other drivers around me want to speed and dodge in and out of traffic. When people dodge in and out of traffic there not only endangering their lives but the lives of others. I really love it when there dodging traffic and they cut me off and I have to slam on the breaks, which is my favorite. Even after all this I try to remain calm and not flip a gasket. I become a critical thinker in the car.

Schedule reflection

My class schedule reminds me of my high school schedule, I start at 9 in the morning and I am finished at 2. Then for the most part I have the same classes 3 to 4 times a week. So my schedule still has that high school feel but the major difference between my high school schedule and college schedule is that now in college I have a lot of free time. I mean that when I finish my last class of the day, the day is still young, I am no longer mentally exhausted after leaving class and I have more time to myself.With this comes a lot more responsibility of time management unlike high school. With high school I was able to procrastinate with my work and either finish during a late-night cram session or I was able to get an extension. With college it is a whole new ball game, I actually had to do that once and it did not work out in my favor. I did not really procrastinate with my assignment but I did not plan t out, so the reality was that I missed my dead line to turn my work in and I lost a few points it was not the end of the world but I learned a valuable lesson that night. I cannot wait to the last minute to turn assignments in, it will never work.
Also with my abundance of free time I have learn time management, so that I do not miss deadlines and other important things. What I have to constantly remind myself of is that if I am not careful I can let the day go pass me. I will look up and it is 9 pm and I have a paper due at 12 midnight and I have not done anything productive. What I am learning slowly but surely is that time management is a necessity for me to succeed.
    

Prinera semana de clase

Maybe it is just me but, I expected college to be right to the point. Classes to have ten page essays due the following day, to come my dorm room every night with a ton of homework.

The first week of classes for me were great; light, simple, easy going. My standards were apparently set too high for a incoming freshman, when I tell people how I feel it is either why do you want all of the stress or just wait until later in the year. I can not wait, for some reason I like to be under stress. when I am under stress it seems as if I work better, I become an academic beast that is hungry for the next task, hoping that the prey provides more of a challenge. Over all I like college life so far and hope my endeavors take me far here at GVSU and in life.