Students stray from studies
Marisa Roper
College students across the world pick up on some pretty bad habits and may not have recognized how these habits have evolved.Ninety MCC students were polled and asked to list their top three worst college habits.
Among the most popular answers were “not wanting to be at school,” “not exercising,” and “losing focus in class” because of things such as being distracted by the opposite sex.
According to Sonia Esposito, an MCC counselor, losing focus in class may be due to a lack of motivation.
“A student probably isn’t interested in the class if they’re losing focus that often,” she said.
Students may not have set long-term goals, so they don’t see the relevance of a class when they look at the big picture.
Esposito said that students with this issue can see a counselor to help them set their own goals.
There’s also a class, CPD150, Strategies for College Success, that’s offered on campus that will teach students better college strategies.
The number one answer, “procrastination,” seemed to have sucked in 67 of the students involved in the poll.
There were many students who added side notes to their polls saying that their time management was horrible, and that last minute studying was definitely the worst habit they’ve picked up.
According to Esposito, most students were never taught good studying habits and that’s why they may struggle.
She also added that some students may just come to college because they know that’s what they’re “supposed to do,” but again they have no real goal set in mind.
The next popular bad habit adopted by students is being tardy or just skipping class.
Reasons listed for ditching class ranged from sleeping in to just not feeling like going to class that day.
“I don’t go cause there’s only one class and it seems pointless,” student Kristina Alvarez said about her single evening class.
Alvarez goes to classes in the morning and then has to come back later for one class.
“It’s not a bad habit though. I’ve only done it twice,” Alvarez said.
Skipping class may be popular among the students at MCC, but what about sleeping during class?
Only about five out of the 90 students admitted to sleeping during a class period.
Gia Ciancanelli, another MCC student, falls among these five.
Ciancanelli fell under the sleeping-in-class spell over the duration of the past two years.
She said that she’s been taking summer classes the past two summers and is sick of being in school all year round.
“I have really short attention spans now,” she said, and then added that her professors never say anything to her about her bad habit.
“Sometimes I wake up and they give me dirty looks and that’s about it. I just get so bored,” she said.
“Partying and drinking too much” falls at number four on the list, with “bad sleeping habits” following closely behind.
The sixth worst college habit is “bad homework” skills.
This area included students not doing assignments or forgetting them, and what some described as “B.S.-ing” their way through an assignment or simply not caring about getting it done.
One student in particular seemed to have incorporated “studying while intoxicated” into his daily college lifestyle.
Tied for the number seven spot is “bad note taking” and “technology use in class.”
Some students elaborated on their poll sheet about how their notes didn’t make sense or they doodle on their note pages and stop taking actual notes.
Others admitted to an obscene amount of texting or Internet surfing while in class.
The list of random habits goes on, from leaving class to go to the restroom just because that student was bored to never learning class material or not buying the textbook.
Some MCC students have tried changing their habits, sometimes to little avail.
“I go to bed early now and I’m still always tired,” Alvarez said.
