Jacob Sutton Seminar-Fall 2018

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin I have just began my fourth week of college.  MY FOURTH WEEK!  How I made it through the first three, I do not know.  Ithaca College has truly been a rollercoaster of emotions, and it has taken a significant amount of maturing on my part to begin living independently.  But I feel like, even though I've been here for just over three weeks, both my maturity and sense of self have grown immensely. College has taught me a lot.  As a vocal performance major I am constantly working on my repertoire, aural skills, music theory, and keyboard skills.  I definitely don't have as much free time as I was thinking I would during the day, and with that, I have had to greatly work on my time management skills.  At home, my parents were always nagging at me to finish my homework, and I guess that since they did that so much, I relied on it to keep me on track.  It took me a while to fully realize that I would have to rely on myself ...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin "The Achievement of Desire", part two of "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez talks much about his schooling as a Mexican American student in an English speaking classroom. Coming from a very underprivileged family, he quickly admits that much of his success came from him never taking his education for granted. Rodriguez felt that since he began American schooling at a disadvantage to other students, he had to work harder than everyone else in the classroom.  Rodriguez is implying that his background as a lower-class, Mexican American student gave him a kind of advantage in the classroom, since it made him so aware of the changes his educating was bringing to his life. This very awareness caused him to push harder in his academic endeavors and ultimately helped him succeed and quickly exceed the  standards of pretty much all of his teachers (and receive more outstanding grades compared to his peers in the classroom).   This ...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin September 9, 2018 I have to say, it's been quite the journey, adapting to college.  In a sense, it's like starting a whole new way of life.  The phrase "new year new me" has probably been coined by the vast majority of teenagers on countless instagram posts as they enter a new year of high school.  But that doesn't apply anymore.  It's not just a regular year of different classes, new textbooks, and new teachers.  College is beginning again, both starting over and starting anew. Don't get me wrong, Ithaca gives its students much more academic, mental, and emotional support than other institutions.  But even so, college is hard.  Really hard.  I thought that having so much free time would make college much less stressful than other schooling experiences that I've had.  But once classes began, I quickly realized that this was in no way the case.  As a music student (and honestly just as a college student in ge...

Jacob Sutton Dr. Mirskin I vividly remember the days leading up to my new beginning.  It was certainly a surreal experience.  My mom, dad, brother and I had spent the last two weeks of summer soaking up the little time we had left with each other in Cape Cod (a family vacation we take every year).  The first week in Cape Cod was completely normal; we would go to the beach practically everyday and spend hours trying to catch the biggest waves we could find.  I would hike down the steep rocks to Higgins Pond that my dad and I would swim across.  I was in heaven. And all of a sudden it was my second week in Cape Cod.   Now, this may already sound dramatic.  Maybe I'm making my first blog post too over the top (if I am then bare with me).  As someone who has struggled with anxiety for almost as long as I can remember, just thinking about starting anew was absolutely terrifying.  College is just like starting high school, in a sense. ...