Tag Archives: Features

Features

Cramming is bad for your health and worse for your transcripts

 

By Carly Columbo

Correspondent

NECC students are finding themselves under crippling stress during these last few weeks in the semester, which leads them to cram. Cramming is defined by Wikipedia as “a widely used study skill performed in preparation for an examination or assessment. Most common among college-aged students, cramming is used as a means of memorizing large amounts of information in a short amount of time.”

Between finals and end of the term assignments, students have to scramble to finish strong.

“My stress levels tend to go higher around this time of school year,” says NECC student Gabriela Hernandez.

Many students are spending these weeks cramming late at night, drinking more caffeinated beverages, consuming more sugary snacks and doing whatever they can to stay awake to study.

“At the same time as finals I have to register for classes and apply to schools to transfer too,” says NECC student Tracy Mukami.

“In a typical day I’m piled with homework, studying for finals, doing a final project and looking at or compiling stuff for another college and trying to apply there.”

Luis Mendoza, an NECC student, said “Everything’s so hectic I hardly remember what sleep is anymore.”

The last few weeks before finals can take a toll on a student’s mental health. More students are trying to “cram” all the material in one night or a selection of nights.

Practices associated with cramming — such as losing sleep and consuming more sugary snacks — can not only hurt your mental and physical health, but also make you less able to retain information.

Studying for a couple hours each night with breaks in between is the smartest way to go about working with a lot of material. It is also important to continue practicing self-care, even when more time is needed to devote to school. NECC student Gabriela Hernandez mentioned her study tips for staying focused and on top of assignments towards the end of the semester.

“I found that over-studying can actually make it more difficult to retain information and learn material. So I try taking breaks in between studying. I usually study 30-40 minutes and then take a 10 minute break. I also try to dedicate the weekdays studying and during the weekends forget about school so I can relax mentally.”

It is also important to get plenty of rest. Students should be getting full nights of sleep to keep focused. It is also effective to stay hydrated and eat healthy to avoid long term stress.

Eating sugary foods can interrupt concentration and in the long-term add to stress. Christine Chung, UW-Madison student and UHS communications specialist, listed quick ways to help reduce stress short-term on the university’s health services website. such as watching a funny YouTube video and sharing it with a friend. There are also coping skills such as doing stretches at your desk, going for a short. brisk walk and even practicing breathing exercises, Chung wrote. 

It is important not to let this time get the best of us. Cramming and staying up studying for long hours hurts our health and ruins our ability to retain important information.

Features

PACE Hosts Aquarium Field Trip

 

On Dec. 3, PACE traveled to downtown Boston for an educational trip to the New England Aquarium. Normally, PACE takes field trips to four-year colleges and universities.

“They provide students with an opportunity to visit area colleges in person, take campus tours, attend information sessions, and meet with university staff to review their transfer credits,” says Kristen Arnold, PACE coordinator.

On these trips, PACE students often have “Mentor Meet-Ups”, where PACE alumni meet up with the group to talk about their transfer process and share their transfer words of wisdom.

PACE also takes cultural trips, like the trip to the New England Aquarium. “The purpose of the cultural trips is to provide an opportunity for our students to learn about and enjoy our local sites of interest,” says Arnold.

The transportation and costs of going to these places can get expensive, so students have the chance through PACE to take trips that normally wouldn’t be available to them.

The Aquarium has a central tank with all different types of fish, sharks, turtles and other sea creatures. As you walk the spiral walkway, each floor leads to a different exhibit.

By the time you reach the top, divers are in the tank, cleaning, feeding or getting live action feed for the television screens on the outer walls of the Aquarium.

The spot to be is the stingray petting pond. Two aquarium employees explain how to let the stingrays come to you, instructing you to lay your hands flat. The baby stingrays surprisingly knew exactly how to sit in place and let you pet them.

A new addition to the aquarium is the virtual turtle hospital, accompanied by jellyfish displays. These two floors in conjunction infatuate children while being incredibly educational. Individuals learn how to feed a turtle, what the turtle’s heartbeat sounds like in cold and warm temperatures, and observe jellyfish along the way. 21-year-old Stephanie Deleon, Communications major, says, “My favorite part is definitely the massive turtle and the sea lions. I really want to hug one, they were so cute.”

New technology is present as you walk up each floor for every creature. Sound stations with headphones are set up for people to listen to the sounds of the deep, like humpback whales, hammerheads or surface dwellers like emperor penguins, for example.

The top of the tank is open-faced, with touch screens full of information for each creature.

“I learned that a horseshoe crab sheds their shell several times during its first year, and then like once a year after its third or fourth year,” says Deleon.

The electric eel had a sensor where you could tell if the eel was tracking, killing or eating its prey. Some of Arnold’s favorite trips with PACE include the Paranormal Tour in Salem, visiting WBZ Studios in Boston, and lobster boating in Maine.

“We’re so lucky to live in this area, because history and culture is all around us. PACE provides an opportunity for our students to get out there and experience it,” says Arnold.

Features

Commemorating Abraham Lincoln

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A commemoration lecture in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s death was held on April 14 in the Hartleb Technology Center. The lecture was organized by Richard Padova as a part of the third installment of the 2014-2015 Speaker’s Series “Movers, Shakes and Opinion makers,” funded by NECC and the generous contributions of Bill Heineman.

Padova was the first to speak, talking about the presidential campaign of Abraham Lincoln and how voting was done during his 1864 election.

“Voting was a little different than you’re accustomed to today. Back in the 1800’s, often times the way voting was done was the political parties would print the ballots with the names of their candidates on it so the Democratic party would print a ballot with all the Democrats on it and the Republican party would print a ballot with all the Republican candidates on it that were running, and then they would distribute these to their supporters straight to the polls on election day.”

Also Partisan papers back in the 1800’s printed pages full of ballots as well, and then voters that planned on voting would cut out a ballot and bring them to their voting place on election day,” said Padova.

Padova, an avid collector of artifacts of American history, brought on display some items from Lincoln’s presidency including a ballot, a playbill from “My American Cousin”, which is the performance Lincoln was attending when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. There was a hand bill which alerted the public in a sort of original paper tweet about the outcome of the election.

“A lot of times when people were waiting for a paper to arrive especially in rural parts of the country, handbills were printed, sort of like the equivalent to a text alert today,” said Padova. A handbill was distributed to announce the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which had a poem written on it, and was on display along with the other artifacts for the lecture.

“On the morning of Friday April 14, 1865, the Lincolns decided they would be attending ‘Our American Cousin’ that evening, so Mary Lincoln notified John Ford, the owner of Ford’s Theatre that the first couple would be attending the performance that evening. Ford went to a local printer and had a playbill printed with the basic information about the performance, and the playbills were circulated on the streets of D.C. as a way to gather support for the performance, and it worked and there was a full house that night,” said Padova.

The assassination of Lincoln took place at 10:15 p.m. on Friday, April 14, 1865.

Next to speak was Professor Jim Murphy from the theater department, who recited a magnificent rendition of the Gettysburg Address, with the Civil War Memorial Guard standing beside him in full uniform.

The guest speaker, Dr. Heather Cox Richardson of Boston University, MIT Suffolk, UMass Amherst, Fitchburg State University and Boston College offered her time to speak about Abraham Lincoln after the recitation of the Gettysburg Address.

She defends Mary Todd from the ridicule often associated with her spending habits and public opinion during Lincoln’s presidency.

Richardson gave very interesting insights in how Lincoln operated in the White House by bringing his poor upbringing into to discussion. She emphasized how Lincoln was a true American, in that he pulled himself up ‘by the bootstraps’ and created his own successes despite many early challenged growing up in less than ideal circumstances.

“The one thing that is interesting, and I speak about this stuff a lot, is that there is this sense — and I’m not necessarily speaking about people today, but there is this sense that they’re (slave owners) deliberately advancing the field that makes them masters of the universe,” said Richardson.

She related how although the United States no longer has slavery, the less wealthy and lower middle people on the line of poverty are in a sense shackled to corporations holding a lot of money and power in the country.

After a brief discussion with the students attending the lecture, there was an open panel discussion followed by a reenactment of Act III Scene 2 of Our American Cousin, the scene playing when Lincoln was assassinated.