The most challenging thing I am facing about getting through this course so far is time
management. Everything just came at once on me during these past weeks. I got a new job that I
started earlier this week, I moved into my new apartment couple of weeks ago which I am still
trying to get things in place and settle down. As well as started this new course couple of weeks
ago. With that been said, I have not overcome this challenge yet until I get everything in place
within two weeks from now, which will be the mid of this course. So therefore, I plan on giving two
to three hours by the end of each day to do my assignments as well as readings in other for me to
be up-to-date with my schoolwork. Hope you’ve all had a great week so far! For me, the most
challenging thing about the course is learning to stop and listen to the music and evaluate what I
think the emotion behind it is, or what the artist is trying to portray through the songs. Some of the
songs throw me for a loop because what may sound like surprise may be anger, and what sounds
like sadness could be anger. I had a hard time trying to clear my mind and just listen to what I heard
to evaluate the music, and even after listening to it over and over it again I still got it quite a bit
wrong. I found that the older songs were tough because I had to understand the time frame it came
from, and I am still working on doing that, but hopefully with a little time I will get better at it.
The most challenging part about this course thus far would be timing and a schedule. I have a lot
going on in my day-to-day life, so making time to study is on my priority list. I must learn to make a
schedule for my jobs, family, and school. It is not the easiest thing to do, but I will make it work I am
determined to make schoolwork. As for as the course itself, it has not been challenging. I am
learning the different ways to analyse and become a pro at looking at pieces of art. The book as far
as materials is easy to navigate as well. My family and their will and pushing me is helping me
overcome my challenges of timing.
For me I found it challenging to understand the old English language thus some words used were
unfamiliar. However, using google dictionary, I was able to understand the meaning and continue
reading and participating in exercises. I hope everyone is having fun learning about art and its
impact on our society. One of them was analysing visual art. Being able to understand what an artist
is trying to convey through a painting or statue is quite difficult for me, so I struggled with that a bit.
Another challenge I faced was analysing poetry. Although I do feel that literature is one of my
strengths, poetry is still difficult for me to comprehend. Something that helped me overcome these
challenges was by spending more time analysing them. As I looked over the artifacts more, they
became easier for me to understand.
I have had a few things that make getting through this course so far, a little challenging. I am a stay-
at-home-mom and while my oldest is in school, I still have a 2-year-old that runs around at home all
day and likes to get into things he should not be and climb any furniture he can. On top of chasing
after him and making sure he does not hurt himself; I also have a small business that I run
completely by myself. What has been helping me to overcome those challenges is to schedule my
time better to make sure I have the most effective time to complete my school work. Getting this
far in the course has been quite challenging for me. I have been through several ups and downs.
One of the major challenges that I faced during the course was managing and completing all the
tasks within the set deadlines. I remain so packed with my schedule that it becomes very hard for
me to handle several tasks in a day. I was not able to focus on any task properly and had to struggle
to complete them at the right time. To overcome this challenge, I decided to work on my time
management skills. I started preparing a schedule daily to keep track of all the tasks that I had to
complete. This helped me to prioritize the tasks that were most important, and I completed them
the first. Then I focused on the lesser important tasks (Pisoni et al., 2019). It helped me concentrate
on one task at a time better and complete all the assigned tasks within the given deadlines. At
times, when I felt too much stressed, I tried getting involved in some meditation and yoga exercises.
This, in turn, helped me to effectively overcome stress and concentrate on the tasks better. I
remained awake late in the night many times to complete the tasks. I kept pushing myself to finish
the tasks and meet the deadline without fail. The journey of reaching this far in the course was
indeed tough. However, the desire to reach my goal motivated me to overcome the challenges that
came in the way.
Good times, bad times, and challenges. Whether we overcome those challenges or let us defeat us
is primarily up to the attitude we take them with. Thus far, the most challenging part to keep up
with the course is that I have a very demanding job "I work in retail" I am a single mom of four, and
even though some people might not find it interesting or important, Applied Humanities is not easy
to understand. There is a lot of reading and information to learn how to appreciate art, music, and
philosophy that I was not counting on. Still, my most significant setback is that I am a big-time
procrastinator. However, like I said at the beginning, we are the only ones with the power to
confront those challenges, I for example, I decided to have a calendar on my desk and write all my
assignment due dates with notes as to why is important for me to accomplish such task, I also have
a note book with notes for my everyday routine, from the moment I have to wake up to go work, to
my to do list at work, to my to do list for when I get home. As to my procrastination habit, I am
working on it and I am proud to say that I have gotten so much better, acknowledging how bad it
makes me feel every time I lose 5 or 10 points just for not turning my assignment in a timely
manner has helped me understand that only I have control of how I want to feel. I hope I get to
accomplish my goal of not losing points for my bad habit of procrastinating.
The challenge for me was getting my work done more efficiently. I did not space out my work that
well and was left with a bit more than expected over the weekend. The solution to this is to get on a
consistent schedule throughout the week, allowing me to complete my work slowly. This is very
important, especially when you have multiple classes. This strategy is better for retention of the
subjects learned and higher grades on projects on most occasions.
There are a few things that have been challenging to me. I am struggling with time management
and increasing my interest in the topics we must read. I have struggled with time management
before, and what seemed to help was creating reminders on my phone to dedicate time to
assignments. I hope the topics we read start to pique my interest and allow me to connect more to
them.
References
Pisoni, G., Segovia, J., Stoycheva, M., & Marchese, M. (2019, September). Distributed student team
work in challenge-based innovation and entrepreneurship (i&e) course. In International Symposium
on Emerging Technologies for Education (pp. 155-163). Springer, Cham.
Life is full of surprises
