The subject of my “interview” is Edward Parker Helms (Ed Helms) who was born on January 24, 1974, in Atlanta, Georgia. He is an actor who is most recognized for his comedy roles. He began his career as a stand-up comedian and writer after enrolling at Oberlin College in Ohio and going on to earn a B.A (Bachelor of Arts degree) in 1996 in film theory and technology. Furthermore, he also

started recording voice-over snippets, which inspired him to chase an acting career. The television programs ‘The Daily Show,’ ‘The Office,’ and the movie trilogy ‘The Hangover,’ are among his most well-known works.  

In his speech, he mentioned overcoming his obstacles and fears and learning how to analyze those fears gave him that amazing opportunity that he’d been searching for this whole time. “But to understand why fear is a good. One has to stop viewing fear as a feeling emotion or behavioral command and start looking at it simply as information.” (Helms) Ed used that fear to explore his curiosity even further. He described it almost as a “spirit guide” that had helped him move into the right path; this can also be applied to a student. Whether it be having that fear of failing a class or getting a bad grade on an exam, those fears should be a motivation to do better and try harder. “And just as before, fear actually helped me out. I had recordings of those stand-up sets and I was terrified to listen to them, but I did, and I heard the subtlest variations in my timing. I heard noise in the room that changed energy, I heard details and I made adjustments and I got better, much better and I never would have if I hadn’t bombed in the first place and if fear wasn’t there to point out exactly where I needed to focus.” (Helms) Looking at this from a student’s point of view, recognizing what went wrong in an exam or assignment and going back to that material is one way that students can better and strengthen their insight. 

He also talks about how the first time that he wasn’t successful in his comedy act, he was hard on himself; telling himself that he was a “failure” and he humiliated himself. This can be interpreted as a student; getting bad grades takes a toll on individuals and wonder if any of the time put into studying was even worth it. Those bad grades can drag students down badly and it’s difficult to boost it once again.  

Life is all about learning and adjusting. I’ve learnt that failing could lead to prosperity, and I’m going to strive to use my “failures” to better my skills and knowledge. Using Ed’s example, I hope that fear becomes a spirit guide for me and pushes me to success. I also like how Ed makes jokes throughout his speech, creating a lighter environment for the students and administrators. It made me feel comfortable and at ease. 

Work Cited 

Editors, TheFamousPeople.com, E., 2022. Who is Ed Helms? Everything You Need to Know. [online] Thefamouspeople.com. Available at: <https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/ed-helms-29978.php> [Accessed 11 February 2022].  

Ed Helms Gives Knox 2013 Commencement Address. 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzfP1AxPx1w  Galesburg, Illinois: Knox College. 

     Matthew is a well- respected gentlemen that attends Georgia State Perimeter college. He attended Druited high school where he earned his diploma. With no breaks in between Matthew came straight to college where he is now in his first spring semester. Deciding a major is in the works for Matthew. Out of all the colleges across the state Matthew choose Georgia State University due to the many opportunities it had to offer. One of his goals is to try to pick a major soon, but when the time is right, he hopes to be happy working part time for that major.  Being motivated, committed, and prepared better explains Matthew academic self. His grandmother passed a few years back, but she still gives him the courage to keep striving to succeed in school. Balancing between life and school his biggest weakness he has is making sure he stays on top of his time management. Some days manages to turn is his class work on time, then there are some days when he must rush and turn in work.  A way he is going to stay on top of his time management is plugging due dates into his calendar to get assignments done in enough time. Matthew made it a number one priority to try taking in all the information and material that he learns from class and understand it to the best of his knowledge. He became a B average student but due to statistics that is the only reason why he couldn’t reach A average. To keep in all the information from all his classes Matthew studies five times every week to prepare himself for an upcoming pop quiz. To keep his focus when he studies, he makes sure to keep the distractions away by going to a quiet room in the house. Taking a step outside of a college student is a young man that loves to swim. When he finds the time after school, he practices on his swimming skills. Matthew passion for swimming has been going on since the age of eight years old. He hopes to become better at swimming so he can join a competitive team someday. He also takes a passion into playing music which he is interested in making all types of genres. Matthew keeps a close small group of friends close by, but also keeps to himself to make sure he is on top of school. Through all the struggles of college Matthew pushes to be his best academic self to get through.

My partner Keith Stettedahl like myself, is a first-generation college student. Keith is a musician, and his major is psychology. He attended some junior college for a while straight out of high school, but he enjoyed playing music more. Since he moved here from his hometown Los Angeles, He has been trying to find what piques his interest and Georgia State University is where he landed. He describes himself as a perfectionist and a very prepared person. He takes pride in his willingness to learn, and his genuine interest in the material. I am going to go into detail about who Keith is as a student, what are the motivations behind his success, what his expectations were and if they were met. 

Keith went to a good high school and did well all the way up until his senior year. He began partying and making music during his last year of high school and slacked off. College was not really on his radar and his family was not really pushing the idea. After graduating he enrolled into a junior college, but he was more interested in music, so he took that route. Keith’s major is psychology, but he is not sure if he wants to pursue the major and he has no definite plans he just wants to learn new things.  

Keith is a slightly untraditional student, so the things that motivate him may be different than the average student coming right out of high school going into college. He has a loving family that motivates him to be successful in college. Keith is also motivated by his genuine willingness to learn and his authentic interest in the material. He appreciates learning more than he did when he was younger. He feels in high school he did work for the sake of getting a grade, but in college he has a real interest in the subjects and assignments. When coming into secondary education Keith looked at it as an adventure which made him enthusiastic to learn.  

Before coming to Georgia state University, Keith had not been in an educational setting since 1993. He did not know what to expect, especially starting school in the middle of a pandemic. He expressed how the learning curve is completely different than what he expected. He had never even used Microsoft software before starting at GSU. Although the transition was different than what he was used to, he has learned a lot about himself as a student. He has learned that he enjoys learning and he loves the atmosphere of professors and students. Coming into an unfamiliar environment he did not know what to expect but he always had a positive mindset to be present and to do an excellent job.  

Being a first-generation college student is tricky. You do not really have a lot of people around you to guide you through the process. This is not because they do not want to, but because they do not know how to. This just means you do not have that voice in your ear telling you to fill out applications, do community service and join extra-curricular activities to boost your chances of acceptance. When you finally get through the process of enrolling and getting accepted you still have a lot of adapting to do, especially if you have been out of school for some time. Eventually you get the hang of it and start to enjoy learning new things and it opens the curiosity in you. This is what happened in Keith’s story, he had been out so long that he is still adjusting to simultaneously being an adult and a student. He is learning new things about himself every day. 

Abass Salat
Engl 1102 + Section 312 – Weaver
Academic Self Analysis
Date Due: 9 February 2022
asalat2@student.gsu.edu

Academic Profile of Thomesia Williams

            Thomesia, who goes by Tee, is an ambitious, resourceful, and adaptive person in her academic life. She bettered and matured her academic self greatly since highschool. Her response to the Covid-19 pandemic and transition from highschool to college was not to depreciate or make her academic self less productive. Rather, she pushed herself to better her academic self and increase her capabilities. She gradually became more ambitious, adaptive to new circumstances, and resourceful.

            Ever since the first semester of college, Tee started to become academically ambitious. During her remote learning period, Tee was among the 80 percent of students that the article “COVID-Era College: Are Students Satisfied?” mentioned were unmotivated during remote learning (Ezarik 6). Tee’s story fits really well with the chemistry student that was quoted to have said, “It’s kind of hard because you can see your bed. They don’t mandate video and don’t know if you’re listening” (Ezarik 6). This environment promoted Tee to put in minimal effort. When Tee got to college and classes were mostly in-person, she was no longer in that low effort promoting environment. She had to increase the amount of effort she put into school, and she started to become ambitious. She began to make sure to be attentive to assignments and deadlines and even developed a system to avoid having late work. Tee works on assignments before the regular time to start to stay ahead of her class. This gives her a safety net that she can fall on incase she has to put off when to start an assignment. This increase in ambition made Tee much better off and boosted Tee’s productivity.

            Tee also takes advantage of all the resources given to her. For example, she takes advantage of office hours when she needs some talking time with a professor. She also studies with a network of other students which helps her understand and learn the material of that class better. In a situation where an assignment is confusing or there is a concept Tee did not fully grasp, these resources come in handy for her. Tee prevents herself from falling behind the class because of her full utilization of these support structures and resources. Overall, this leads to Tee having better grades and feeling less alone in class tasks.

            Tee is also very adaptive to circumstances when they change. She has the capability to change her schedule to accommodate for unprecedented changes to her free time and how much work she has to do. In a situation where her workload is increased or responsibilities take up more of her schedule, Tee does not crumble under pressure. Instead, Tee switches her schedule around, identifies windows of time, and plans work for those windows. Because of her adaptive skills, she avoids procrastination and does not go under system failure whenever her schedule is altered.

            Tee combines her ambitious character, her full utilization of resources, and adaptive skills to boost her academic productivity. With these abilities, her academic self can achieve the goals she sets out. They reduce the likeliness of Tee experiencing setbacks such as not having adequate time to study, failing an exam, and failing balance her academic life with the other parts of her life. Tee has a finely tuned academic self and it did not appear out of thin air. This academic self was built, and one has to appreciate the strategic creation of it.

Work Cited

Ezarik, Melissa. “Student Experiences during COVID and Campus Reopening Concerns.” COVID-Era College: Are Students Satisfied?, Inside Higher Ed, 24 Mar. 2021, www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/03/24/student-experiences-during-covid-and-campus-reopening-concerns.

This essay was written about the academic self of Josh Green and how he came to be. I found that the easiest part of this project was just sitting down and talking to Josh. We settled on a FaceTime conversation. We were in a group of three with another student, which made the conversation much easier. Josh Green is a first-year college student at Georgia State University Perimeter College. He went to Union Grove high school and graduated in the spring of 2021. When I asked why he decided to come to Perimeter college, he said that it was because it was closer to home, and it allowed him to self-explore. He claimed that he wanted to grow into the college experience. 

I asked Josh a little more about his academic life in high school and how his past teachers impacted his academic self. He responded that some teachers were good, and some were really bad. He told me a couple of stories about his bad teachers, the one where one math teacher told his students that they would fail was the one that surprised me the most. To lighten the mood, I asked him about a teacher that helped him. He then told me about his Spanish teacher who encouraged Josh when he was struggling, and although he didn’t walk out of high school being fluent in Spanish, he learned a lesson. He learned that whenever someone offers you help, you should take it and believe that you can accomplish anything. 

The three words that Josh used to describe himself were organized, determined, and cautious. He uses these words to motivate himself and be better in his classes. He believes being organized, determined, and cautious are the keys to being academically successful. When I asked him what he meant by “cautious,” he said he’s careful with the academic decisions he makes, but he also knows when to trust his gut. 

I learned that Josh and I are very different. Our majors are different, the way we describe our academic selves is different, and even the experiences we’ve had with past teachers are different (I hated my foreign language teacher). In trying to find a common ground, I asked about his family setting. What expectations did his parents have about his studies? He told me he felt no pressure from his parents to do well because they never set absurdly high expectations for him to meet. I found that this is something we had in common. 

With his sports medicine degree, Josh hopes to work alongside famous football and basketball teams. He hopes that this education will help him succeed in life. 

Our one-hour talk turned into an hour and a half when I asked both of my team partners how they felt about the idea of Georgia State going virtual. To this Josh explained that he would not enjoy it, and I would have to agree. He told me that during the digital learning era of his high school days, he did not learn as efficiently as he did in a face-to-face setting. It was easy to slack off and not do the work, as you only needed to close the computer to ignore it. He believes physically being in school is what will allow him to reach his academic goals in the long term. Alongside me, he hopes that the COVID-19 pandemic will get better so every student can enjoy being on campus without any fear of exposing themselves to this virus.

     Logan Minter is a second semester freshmen at GSU from Virginia. She takes care of all her responsibilities in and out of school, passionate about her learning, can work outside of her comfort zone, and plans on either being a travel nurse or a labor and delivery nurse.

     After graduating from Westside High School in Virginia, Minter decided to move to Georgia for better opportunities. She lives with her older sister Haley who has also been her biggest motivator. Minter just like Haley enjoys anything science related. Haley received her Bachelor of Science degree from Old Dominion University and plans on receiving her master’s degree from George Mason University.

     A typical school day for Minter, isn’t an average college student school day. She drives about 20+ miles to get to school, goes to her three classes, drives back home to take a nap, studies for her classes, babysits her six and two-year-old niece and nephew until Haley comes home, and then goes to work. Although Minter has a lot of responsibilities and is far from home, and she still takes care of all of them inside and outside of school. But of course, there are always the ups and inevitable downs in college.

     Logan’s first disappointment in college was failing her first semester math class. She was working, taking a full schedule of classes, missed a few weeks after having to go out of town with her family, had car problems that caused her to not have transportation and ultimately fail the class. Even though failing the class hurt and she dislikes math, this didn’t discourage her from her academics and responsibilities. She evaluated her first semester and decided she needed to bring it down to three classes her second semester. She decided that she needed to allow herself more time to put more effort into her classes. The goal she had for this semester was just simply understanding all the information she is being taught, so she started paying more attention to the professor, taking notes, and making it to all her classes on time.

     Like most people do after being far from their home, Logan gets homesick. She misses her biggest supporters, her grandmother and mother back home in Virginia. However, this doesn’t stop her from taking care of her responsibilities. She can be outside of her comfort zone and accomplish her goals. It took courage and strength to decide to move to another state.

            Minter is not an average US student nor is she an ideal student, but she takes the steps she believes are necessary to real her goals. Minter’s academic character shows progression despite all the downs she’s been through. Progression is not only how to become an ideal student but how to grow as a person as well.

The academic evaluation I will be evaluating is on Zion Culbreath. Over several text messages, we text about how his biggest push in life, how would he describe himself, and how he was back in high school. Zion has a big push in his life from his had and is planning to graduate as a software developer. He is now in his second year of college and is planning on transferring to Georgia State to finish his degree in computer science. He said his biggest inspiration was seeing his dad becoming a software developer and he wants to follow in his dad’s footsteps.

Zion describes himself as a deep thinker, very expressive, and open-minded. From what I see Zion is a very deep thinker. He always thinks ahead before he does or says something. Even when I asked the question, it took him a couple of minutes to think of the answer before typing it down and sending it. He is also very expressive through his texts. I can see what his motives and back story were like from just reading and analyzing it. Through texts, I can’t see if he is open-minded or not but I can see that he appreciates what his dad is doing and pushing him to become a better student. 

Another question I asked him was what is his biggest influencer in life. He answered his dad and it was the biggest key to success. His dad pushed him in math and reading so much that in first grade, he was reading a senior-level type of reading. He also said without his dad and mom’s push, he would not have succeeded at the academic level today. I’d say he has very high expectations and high hopes because of the push he has from his family. The thing that he added was that they shaped his academic outlook. Personally, I relate to this because my family pushed me to go to college and get a 4 years degree to be successful in life. From his perspective, I can see that his family is trying to pave the road for him to go and has him on the right track right now. 

Overall I think Zion will be very successful academic-wise. He has everything laid in front of him and is currently following it on his own decision. His head starts in 1st grade and through high school give him an advantage in front of other students that are attending GSU. Before interviewing Zion, I thought that most students were like me and were going through school because they have to but he is doing it out of choice.

This essay is an insight into who Trenton Marshall’s academic self is, based on different interviews and regular conversations that I had with him. Trenton is an 18-year-old student in his first year at Georgia State University. He has been to many different schools around Georgia, because he moved around a lot in his younger years of childhood. He graduated from Tucker high school in 2021, and he came straight to college right after high school. One of the reasons Trenton chose to come to college right after high school, is because he did not want to waste time and he would like to accomplish the goals that he has set in place for him self on his own time. Trenton is studying computer engineering and he is striving to be an information technology specialist (IT). Trenton got some of his inspiration for his passion for his future profession from his uncle, who is an IT manager, and because he has a genuine passion for science and technology.  

Speaking of his uncle, in his family life, Trenton has one older brother, three younger brothers, and one younger sister. His older brother had an influence on him coming to GSU in the first place, because he saw that the school had so much to offer. He has lived with his mom all his life, which shows the impact she has on him. His mom is his mentor, since he sees that his mom is so hardworking, that has influenced him to be the same way. The three words that Trenton used to describe his academic self are hardworking, determined, and procrastinating. To some, the words “hardworking” and “procrastinator” can be antonyms, but for Trenton it is as if it is a badge of honor. He has said even though he pushes his work off sometimes, he will always make sure it is done, and that when it is done it will be done correctly. I asked Trenton why he was so hardworking he replied with, “I have to get some money, being unsuccessful is not an option.” He also said that his ambition is a sentiment to be where he wants to be in life.  

In college, Trenton shared that a frustration he has at times, is having to go through all the math courses to get where he wants to be for his degree and future career. He told me that often in math, he has a tough time navigating through everything there is to learn. Since his major and future profession relies heavily on math, he must understand all the intermediate course work before moving on to tougher classes. He even told me that, since he is so determined to accomplish his goals of working in technology, when struggling with hard math course work, he would end up studying the material before and after the class for a better understanding.  

The conclusion I have, after talking with Trenton, is that he is going to do what needs to be done to carry out his dreams. Talking with him is really a breath of fresh air, being that he is such an optimist. He also gave me a different outlook on college in general. While talking to him he showed me different views on college life, one being that he chose to stay close to home. His attitude towards college and to the work that he gets shows how his academic self-shines through in reference to his favorite reading in the class. His favorite reading is “COVID-Era College: Are Students Satisfied.” The reading said “Expectations aside, students generally fell in line” when it comes to returning to school. This reading relates to Trenton, because like the students in the reading Trenton has his own struggles with how school is now because of the pandemic and then having to adjust when returning back to school. In high school Trenton took online courses and even though he might not have liked them, he adapted to this new lifestyle and persevered through it to be able to succeed. Trenton’s academic profile shows us that no matter how many drawbacks there are, whether it comes from your approach to work or the work that you gets for your major, there is always a way to succeed and accomplish your goals if you have the will to do it. 

Citations

Ezarik, Melissa, COVID-Era College: Are Students Satisfied, Inside Higher Ed, 24 March 2021 

Marshall Trenton, Pair Interview transcript, Conducted by Jaslyn Hamilton, February 2022