I’ll be honest, at first, I completely hated Baruch.  I was completely miserable the first two weeks. The classes, the professors, and failing to make new  friends all discouraged me and made me question my decision to even come here. Not to mention, the almost 2 hour commute from Long Island every morning. I must say, however, it has progressively gotten better. Now I’m loving it here. I owe my newfound love of Baruch to this girl, one of the closest friends I’ve made so far, Sabrina. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have even considered applying to The 33rd Annual Baruch Leadership Weekend let alone get accepted to it. When I first heard about it, I was intimidated by the very idea of it. I mean, I’m the farthest thing from a leader and I was always very shy and afraid to speak my mind due to judgment from other people.  But when Sabrina told me she was applying for it, I figured why not? While filling out the application, I remember laughing at the fact that they wanted me to fill out my current leadership roles at Baruch when I had only been there two weeks, so I left that part blank and submitted it. I didn’t really think much of it at the time because I was highly skeptical I was going to get in but life has a way of surprising you sometimes. Needless to say, it came as a total shock to me when I got the acceptance email. I was so excited for this new experience! Just this Thursday, we had a mandatory orientation for Leadership Weekend (me and Sabrina are pictured at the event above). All I have to say is that I genuinely enjoyed it. Everyone, from the TEAM Baruch leaders to the directors of the programs to the fellow students, was so incredibly nice and friendly. The entire atmosphere of the room was unlike anything I had seen at Baruch in my short time here. We did so many fun activities, such as writing our signatures from both our dominant and non-dominant hand, discussing our individual strengths, and breaking the ice with the fellow students by “squading up”. I’m so glad I didn’t let my fear hold me back from joining this amazing event and I realized that if I hadn’t done it, I would be missing out on so many possible friendships and the chance to learn something about myself and my leadership qualities, which I didn’t think I had before today. I’m so excited for what the future holds for me at Baruch and the moral of the story is don’t let fear of judgement hold you back from doing anything you want in life. As the famous saying by Nike goes, JUST DO IT and don’t worry about what other people think. That’s not in the quote by Nike, by the way, it’s just my own little spin on it.

For some students the beginning of a new school year comes along with a set of new goals. In my case, one goal in particular that I set for myself is to stop procrastinating and use my time more effectively. This goal comes hand in hand with another goal, which is to study better.

The V.A.R.K questionnaire helps students find the best way to study and upon completion of the questionnaire students can find the best strategies to prepare for different classes. This insightful questionnaire can be found in the back of our handy Freshman Seminar Student Handbook. The title of this post, though punny, can be misleading because V.A.R.K. is actually an acronym that stands for Visual, Aural, Read/Write and Kinesthetic.

After completing a series 16 multiple choice consisting of different scenarios, the answers point a person to the type of learner they are. I scored 4 for visual, 6 for aural, and tied 7 for both read/write and kinesthetic. This was a partly shocking and partly known discovery for me as I always knew I was a fan of a more hands-on approach of learning but I always found reading and writing to be long and tedious. I look forward to weave these new found strategies to my study regimen in order to (hopefully) achieve my goal of a more productive school year.

I took the V.A.R.K. quiz in the freshman seminar handbook to help figure out how I learn best.  The point of the quiz is to find out whether you are a visual, auditory, read/write, or kinesthetic learner.  The quiz asked hypothetical and situational questions to gauge what kind of person I am.  My answers to these questions showed my learning tendencies.  My results were very even across the board.  I scored 4 V’s, 4 A’s, 4 R’s, and 5 K’s.  From these results, I concluded that I am a very diverse learner.  I can learn from almost any way a teacher presents things.  I also prefer to see different methods when learning to do things, whether it is academic or not.  I think it is best to learn things different ways and not the same way each time.  This explains my results.  This VARK quiz helps me academically because it encourages me to learn things from different perspectives.  I plan to do this throughout my freshman year to help me do well in my classes.  I encourage all students to take this quiz because it can help them discover how they learn best  and gives them a clear plan.

For my first blog post I will be talking about the VARK Questionnaire I did that is found on the Freshman Seminar Student Handbook since I didn’t get a chance to check out the events yet. VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic. The purpose of this questionnaire is to show each student what their preferences are in academic learning. Since our classrooms are filled diverse, some teachers give out this quiz in the beginning of the school year to see how the teacher should teach so that all the students can get the best out of it. I remember taking a similar questionnaire in middle school and high school. For this questionnaire I have  6 V’s, 8 A’s, 11 Rs, and 8 Ks. For most of the questions, I have multiple choices. This questionnaire suggests that I’m a read/write person which is very true. I always learn best based on reading the textbook myself and by practice through examples. I don’t really learn much from lectures and videos. I think this is they best way for my learning because i read the information and i can recall it easily.

Prior to taking it, I had never heard of the V.A.R.K. Questionnaire. Upon completing it and eventually looking up the meaning of my results, I realized that the entire point is recognizing “the way I learn best” through my answers rather than my numerical score. (I’m assuming participants in a discussion use the actual numbers.) Reviewing my choices, I noticed how I preferred learning with the use of visuals and if possible a step by step narrative. I began to notice how with those methods I tend to understand information presented to me quickly and easily. In other words I will be less likely to reread something or ask for more explanation. I think that it’s important I am aware of this in order to take  advantage of more resources and save time through the course of my studies. Whether or not I am able to reciprocate my methods of learning to others in terms how I give out information I am not so sure. I  think I rely on those methods when explaining something because I trust their effectiveness more than a thorough worded explanation, however I do  need to brush up my skills. Overall, I plan to take advantage of the way(s) I learn best and hope to  see fruitful results in my studies and future.

The V.A.R.K Quiz in the freshman seminar student handbook allow students to understand what type of learning style best suits them. In regards to myself, it helped me choose what studying habits I should stick with, and what to take out. Moreover, I’ve changed my note taking patterns and relied upon new techniques. The results of my test concluded that I am very “Kinesthetic” based when it comes to learning. This means I learn more efficiently with my eyes than any other way, which doesn’t seem surprising; art and digital classes have always been a breeze for me. In addition, it allows me to ask my professors for help in a way that makes me comprehend easily. With all that said I think that this quiz will benefit many students in the future. Everyone should take this quiz!

For my academic blog assignment, I decided to take the VARK quiz, mainly because I had no idea as to what it was and was also very convenient to take. VARK is an acronym which stands for Visual, Aural, Read, and Kinesthetics, and is meant to help the person taking the test to learn what their learning preference is. I took the quiz and got not too surprising results, with reading/writing and kinestheics as my highest, followed by aural and lastly visual.  In school, I often learn the best from practicing examples and getting a good understanding of how a problem is solved, which is mainly kinesthetics. It allows me to get involved with the problem, rather than staring at it, unlike Visual, which is my lowest category. I believe that the VARK Quiz is somewhat accurate, with my highest categories of kinesthetics and reading/writing. To me, those are very essential when it comes to learning in a class because it helps me absorb the information which prepares me for different kind of questions that I might have to answer.

Taking the V.A.R.K. quiz opened my eyes a bit about starting college. I’m not sure about everyone else, but I did quizzes just like this one almost as often as breathing throughout high school. The one thing that caught my attention was the results. After every single one of these types of quizzes in high school, I seemed to have a unanimous preference to learn visually, which does make sense, as I don’t pay much attention unless you grab it. However, the V.A.R.K. quiz was the first to dispute these routine results. This survey’s results depicted me as a kinesthetic learner, which I had never gotten before, but I guess can maybe make sense. I’ve changed the way I studied, worked in class, and done homework since I started at Baruch, so maybe with a new experience comes a new way of learning.

As a student who aspires to be sucessful in college, as well as in life,  I understand that I must change certain habits and adopt new ones in order to achieve these goals. A college environment and the expectations of college students are different and most times more demanding than those of high school students; therefore I cannot expect to carry the same habits from high school into college and expect the same results. In addition to setting aside time for assignments and studying, keeping an always-updated schedule of classes and events, and making sure that I even make it to my classes (on time), I also decided to learn more about how I learn things.

The V.A.R.K. questionnaire, located in our Freshman Seminar handbooks, gives students the opportunity to assess their own learning style(s) and discover which techniques will be the most likely to help them in their academic careers. Based on the frequency of certain types of responses to the multiple choice questions given, the learning preferences of the respondent is determined. After tallying up my scores, and researching the results, I discovered that I identify as being a Reading/Writing (R) and Kinesthetic (K) learner. This means that making lists, taking notes, and reading texts, as well as role-playing  situations, doing practical exercises, and using the trial and error method are most likely to benefit me in my classes, and as a student overall. I am glad that I completed this quiz because it gave me a better understanding of the type of student that I am, as well as what I can do to become a better one. I will be sure to apply the suggestions that I found to my school work and hopefully I will see positive results!