Miriam Bergmark is a 20 year old student who attends Georgia State University Perimeter College. She expresses her academic self as curious, slow, and patient. Over the courses of her middle school and high school journey, she has learned how important education can be. During our English class, we talked about The New Education. Davidson explained how “The Panic of 1867 dimmed the reputation of the United States education system” (Davidson 19) giving students less hope for an education. Education is important to Miriam because it has helped Miriam understand herself a little bit better. She wants to strive for her goals but the reputation of education is making her second guess her choice. Miriam’s goal is to help others as much as she can as a health scientist. Her biggest influencer is her grandfather. He has taught her many things throughout the course of his lifetime. He is her biggest supporter when it comes to working hard in school. Sometimes when she struggles to learn the material, she would communicate with her grandfather for some advice.

Miriam enjoys learning new materials at school but it takes time for her to digest the new concept. She is very patient with herself when it comes to her studies. Miriam is taking English, qualitative reasoning, anatomy, anatomy lab, and US government at GSU Perimeter College. Her favorite subject in school is anatomy but she does enjoy taking any other science classes. Her love for anatomy started when she was in middle school going to high school in Sweden.

Before she attended Perimeter College, Miriam attended elementary and middle school in Sweden. She went to a private school during her 6th-9th grade. The school that Miriam went to was very well rounded and they helped many international students including her. Miriam said “schools in Sweden are vastly similar to the ones here in the United States.” During her 9th grade year, many students were already applying for universities. She said “students would either apply for universities or go straight into a university.” Miriam’s favorite thing to do was having regular conversations with some of her teachers and professors. She said it helped her tremendously because it was helping her build a connection between her and her professors. Before Miriam and Miriam’s family decided to move, she had learned two different languages, Swedish and English. Miriam’s family moved to the United States because her dad got into a program at a university in America. 

Miriam and her family moved from Sweden to Florida. She started to attend a public High School in Florida. She chose psychology and history as her major while she was in high school. During High School, she participated in track, running the 100 meter sprint. She stated that “running felt like all my problems had lifted away.” After High School, she wanted to continue her studies at Perimeter College because it was a cheaper option. Right before she started her journey at Perimeter College, she took a gap year. This was the year covid had happened. She wanted a normal college experience instead of doing it online. Her plans after graduating from Perimeter College is to go to Georgia State University Atlanta Campus to continue her studies as a cardiovascular perfusionist or as a health science. Miriam is very thankful to have experienced this wonderful journey with her family.

If Miriam had never moved to the United States, she wouldn’t be telling her story today. Besides attending school, Miriam enjoys riding horses in her free time. She enjoys doing what she loves during her free time because it helps her relieve some of her stress from school. Miriam is excited for her new journey as a college student.

Citation:

Trinh Bui interviewed Miriam Bergmark

Davidson, Cathy N. The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World Flux. 2nd ed., Basic Books, 2017.

                  Ayaan is originally from Sydney, Australia, but he later made a transition to Hyderabad, India in 2005 at age 2 to attend school. Ayaan was familiar with the curriculum/education system and perceived himself as being a great student in India. He arrived in the United States while only attending the 6^th grade. Ayaan finished 6^th through 8^th grade at Druid Hills Middle School. Ayaan expressed that moving to the States has him been hard adjusting, knowing that he is in a completely new education system. He added that “The United States students’ curriculum in 9^th and 10^th grade are being taught the same in the 5^th and 6^Th grade in the India Education”. He explained that the India education was different but operated their school systems in a fast-paced advanced environment. In India writing classes, students needed to take two different languages. The first language is the student preference, and the second language must be the language that was being spoken in India. Students were not offered tutoring or tutorial, but the communities had intuition classes outside of class to get help on homework, which was expensive. Classrooms in India were a unit of 45 students, so teachers could not give every student the one-on-one assistances that students may have possibly needed.

               Ayaan made a move to Alabama where he completed his 9^th through 10^th grade due to family circumstances. He moved back to Atlanta where he later finished up school and received a High School Diploma at Parkview High school. Ayaan did not waste any time, he chose to go straight to college after high school in August ‘2021. Ayaan stated that “Teachers are not constantly on the students in college as they were when he attended high school”, but on the other hand college seems to give students a form of independency that we all should want. He currently attends Clarkston GSU because it is easy to commute. Right now, Ayaan is in the pursuit of an Associate’s Science Degree to become a Physician Assistant.

             The three words that describe his academic self were lazy, kinesthetic, & science lover. Ayaan states that he’s lazy towards his academic self because his new environment is totally laid back from what he was used to in India. He is grateful for Georgia State University class units being so small, because he feels that he’s getting a little help from his peers. Ayaan enjoys working with his hands (a kinesthetic learner), and he doesn’t like visually learning because it can be challenging for him at times. Lastly, Ayaan stated that he is a Science Lover, because he’s majoring in Chemistry. Although his major of study is chemistry, he has thoughts of switching his major to a biology major.

             Ayaan recalls the process of Dr. Chew’s metacognition video and found it interesting that he studies the research in how students learn and study. Ayaan had no idea that the most important factor in successful learning are the things that we are thinking of while studying. Ayaan says that he can’t completely focus on one assignment if he has a workload on his mind. He finds himself to be focused more when having a clear mind to execute the things that required of him. Overall, Ayaan agrees heavily on the data that Dr. Chew collected on how students learn and study. Ayaan plans to put Dr. Chew’s videos in consideration to not just schooling but his everyday life as well.

Work Cite : 

-Ayaan Lakhani

Muska is a bright and bubbly dual-enrollment student from Afghanistan. She loves to travel and has been to several different states and countries. She’s traveled to places like Quebec, Toronto, Texas, Alabama, and Virginia. A couple of her hobbies include creating beautiful Origami flowers and playing video games. The fact that she plays video games is unsurprising, considering that her two siblings she looks up to are older brothers. The first thing someone notices about Muska is the optimistic attitude she brings to the conversation. Her current academic self would be described as adventurous and curious. This was evident by her upbeat tone and inquisitive nature when I interviewed her.

She is an easygoing, relaxed 16-year-old girl, attending GSU Perimeter College full-time to earn college credits while earning her high school diploma. She graduates from high school in 2024, but she is still learning about majors and her options when it comes to college. She still has plenty of time to figure that out, especially since she is attending college classes for free at the age of 16, because of her high school’s affiliation with Georgia State. This means that she is doing what a lot of high school students don’t get to do, exploring her options with higher education.

Muska is just recently getting exposed to ideas outside of the high school curriculum and is figuring out what piques her interest. This means she is just now figuring out how to learn college material, even in classes that don’t pique her interest. Even so, she sees the value in getting an education. Muska states, “I think learning new things allows us to discover interests that we didn’t know about.” In her classes she’s taken a particular interest in Macroeconomics as well as Media and culture. Math used to be her favorite, but now she is not very fond of it.  This broad range of classes she’s taken interest in shows the benefit of being undecided in your major at first. It has allowed Muska to not be constrained in what would be her major.

“At the end even if knowledge is the most important thing, it depends on the person; for me it might be hard to learn new things, but if it’s something I like, then I’m willing to see it through.”, Muska states. This means that she is aware that learning a new subject is hard, but it’s not hopeless. In addition, she is aware that as a college student, you do not have to see everything through. Everyone has options. Everyone is figuring out their place in the world and in education post COVID-19.

According to the reading we did for Dr. Weaver’s English Composition 1102 class, “COVID-Era College: Are Student’s satisfied”, By Melissa Ezarik, studies conducted Inside Higher Ed and College Post showed that “Only 10 percent of respondents [college students post the COVID-19 outbreak] report having spent time using career center services or focused on career development.” (Ezarik, 2021). Therefore, not many college students are necessarily focused on what they’re going to do in the long run by planning a career. In addition, Ezarik stated that, “It’s clear to anyone paying attention: the majority of college students look forward to more carefree days.” (Ezarik 2021). In other words, students after dealing with the stress if having their high school education interrupted by a pandemic want to socialize and learn without stressing about what their going to do with their careers and specificities, especially when a virus like COVID can throw a wrench in whatever they have planned. So, for now high school and early college students, like Muska, are exploring what an education has to offer to them.

What Muska helped me realize is that people don’t have to have 5-year and 10-year plans before they create an educational foundation for themselves. She showed me that staying curious and easygoing is enough to get the ball rolling with your future, even if you don’t know what that future looks like yet. Muska is excited to figure out what that future will look like, whether that is in business, in media, or even architecture, she is figuring that one class at a time.

Citations:

• Muska Shahem, Interview, February 2023
• Melissa Ezarik; “COVID-Era College: Are Student’s satisfied”, Inside Higher Ed
• Rebecca Weaver, PhD; Major Project #1 (Academic Profile) February 2023, GSU Perimeter Campus

This profile is a compilation of an interview that was recorded on a phone with Sasha about her academic self. We had 2 interviews in which Sasha was sked several questions about her academic self and her journey of education so far. In this interview we recorded her experiences and got to know how she got here. Sasha is 25 and she spent all her life here in Georgia. Unfortunately, due to her family circumstances she did have to switch between several schools through k-12. She describes as these transitions between schools were very challenging but also interesting at some moments. Sasha did take a break after attending college for one semester as she did not do so well but decided to motivate herself and return to college. When asked about the difference between schools in different counties, she mentioned something very interesting like the pace at which different schools go about their teaching. She said that the cobb county education system is very faced paced versus the Dekalb county education system. She also thinks that it is hard for students to catch up so quick in cobb county rather than in DeKalb.

The three words that Sasha described her academic self as were exploring, adjustable and reflective. She says that she is exploring a lot of things as far as college in concerned as in different ways to learn and how different professors have different styles of teaching. She also says she is adjustable as she is trying to adjust in this new environment, which is college and as a student myself, I can relate to how difficult this adjustment could be. The third word was very interesting to me which was reflective. This word was interesting because she said she still reflects on her past works from high school, and she also does a lot of self-reflecting of how she was as a student in high school versus college. Overall, her three words were very interesting to me. Sasha seems to be a very interesting person and seems like she has a lot of experience from different school systems and her life experiences indicate that she has seen a lot in life. After meeting Sasha and listening about her academic self, I could relate her understanding of studying and revision to Dr. chew’s metacognition video in which he talks about how to study in detail. 

Sasha says that she sees herself in the healthcare field in a couple years down the line. It is very interesting how she describes why she wants to be a doctor when she says she wants to save lives which was very heart touching. She says she is very proud of the way she has been consistent in anything she has done so far in her life. Sasha is also very much invested in writing, and she feels that writing might change her career path in the future.

Overall, interviewing Sasha and getting to know her was an amazing experience and it was very interesting to know a person who has been through so much and has had a tough path to reach where she has today. 

work cited 

Radford, Sasha. Interview. Conducted by Ayaan Lakhani, Jan 26, 2023.