Academic Success & The Harlem Shake

This week Shelby and Stephanie facilitated class and discussed ways to improve Academic Success. I think they did a great job of selecting activities that made the class interact with each other while still emphasizing the point they were trying to make. During the question of the day I learned that our class has a lot of varying academic goals. Numerous people in the class said that they want to get their Masters or Doctorate. I have never thought of continuing college once I get my degree. Having a variety of goals as peer mentors will be great for next Fall when we'll be dealing with incoming freshman who also have varying academic goals.

During the quiz we took I learned that I am a kinesthetic learner which I predicted. If someone shows me how to do something, I can usually pick it up pretty easily. I think audio learning is probably my weak point. If someone describes to me how to do something it can very easily get jumbled up in my mind and I forget some of the steps. It is important to know your learning style so that you can use techniques that specifically help you learn. There are several different study techniques that you can use for each learning style.

This week we also had a very interesting discussion about the Harlem Shake. People from Harlem are angry that a dance rich in culture has been turned into an internet meme. I understand why they are angry but I believe that the meme and the original Harlem Shake are two completely things. No one could watch the two and confuse them for one another so I don't think the videos were meant to mock the original dance. Political correctness is at an all time high now which is necessary at times but can prevent innovation or growth which I think it does in this case. Also, today's society is all about changing things and adding new meanings to things that had been left alone for centuries. For example, there used to only be one solid definition for the word love, now people throw around the word love to describe their favorite ice cream. Culture in general is changing rapidly with today's technology. Lastly, I think the videos only brought attention to what the Harlem Shake really is. I had never heard of the original dance style before the meme became popular. The example we saw in class of people performing the dance was very interesting and entertaining. I would definitely consider in an art form and I kind of wonder why I had never heard of it before.