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Incoming college students.. listen up!

I have been asked about some tips or advice for incoming college students, both traditional and non-traditional, so here it is.. enjoy!

So I am what you call a non-traditional student I did not go to college right out of high school it took a couple years for me to realize that it was important for me to pursue a higher education beyond my high school diploma. My very first freshman semester I took two classes, one of these was a developmental math course ( I ABSOLUTELY LOATH MATH!) and of course I dropped out of college soon after, honestly I don't even think I did like a full month of classes I just stopped showing up. I wasn’t motivated and all I really wanted to do was hang out with my friends and do hood rat shit (LOL)  Fast forward 4 years after that, when I AGAIN decide to get my act together, it took that mixed with having some personal experiences to kind of get my head straight in regards to my future endeavors and what I want to do with myself. When I say that it's hard to do college by yourself, y’all... it is so hard, it doesn’t help that I'm an introvert who doesn’t like to ask for help from tutors because I feel like I am burdening them and I’m worried that I will embarrass myself with dumb questions.  Neither of my parents graduated high school so that was no help with homework or studying and at the time I was going to a Community College and so the atmosphere is not quite like a four-year University. Everybody just kind of stays to themselves so it is not like it is easy to mingle make new friends, there is not a lot of on campus activities and stuff like that so that also made it difficult. But also I did not know how to study, honestly I'm not going to lie to you guys, I'm currently working on my third college degree and I still don't know how to study and sometimes that really kind of like puts things into perspective about our educational system in regards to the way that they teach towards a specific curriculum. I think that teaching students how to study is extremely important. The way that I get through my college classes is a lot of crying, and I am not being sarcastic, that is exactly what happens. I do a lot of crying, there is a lot of frustration, there is a lot of screaming at myself, there is a lot of self-bullying and personal demons that I battle with. I do not feel like I learn like everybody else, I cannot just read something or watch a video and retain information. Everything must be repetitive; I must read it over and over and over, I must highlight things and make up little phrases in order to remember topics like the Krebs cycle. So, it is repetitive, and it slows me down, it is frustrating, and the experience overall is overwhelming. Especially recently with covid a lot of my classes have been online which essentially translates to teach yourself a brand-new topic, good luck, and may the force be with you kind of thing. For people like me who deal with what my boyfriend calls “impostor syndrome” it really rattles any self confidence that I built throughout my college career and it makes me feel like the achievements that I've done so far aren't valid and that I don't deserve the degrees that I have and that maybe it was a mistake . With these things being said I just want to spread some positivity and some good vibes in regards to anybody who is a freshman going into college, a current college student, or a non-traditional student such as myself who feels like they might be too old to go back to school. Everybody is dealing with their own struggles and college is not easy, if it were everybody would have a college degree. Some tips from myself would be not to be afraid to ask questions, if you're like me, I have really bad anxiety and I don't feel like I can bring myself to ask a question during lecture in front of the class so I'll either email the professor afterwards or I will speak to the professor one-on-one during office hours or I'll try to grab her as soon as class is over before she leaves an ask her a question. The reason why I say this is because college moves very fast and the professors honestly it seems like they're not going to put any extra effort into helping you understand a topic if you don't express your confusion or if you don't understand the topic. At the end of the day you're paying for your college education and you need to create self-confidence and remind yourself that you're worthy and that your questions do deserve to be answered no matter how ridiculous they sound in your head no matter if you think that it will sound dumb. I cannot stress enough the importance of getting your questions answered. My second piece of advice is to utilize any type of group study offered, like I said before, I have really bad anxiety and it's hard for me to just walk up to a stranger and ask to be a study buddy. What I've noticed though is that a few students will get together or it will just be one student and they will start a group chat through either GroupMe or through text message or you know through canvas which is the educational platform that my University uses, and it really helps because you still have access to study guides, notes, or if you miss a day you can reach out and ask what you missed. As well as review and go over important topics and information posted. A lot of the times you don't even have to be face to face with these people, all of it is through text messaging or email. Another really good piece of advice is learn how to use OneNote and Google Docs and learn how to use it in a group format so that multiple people can work on one document together in real time so you can watch somebody else edit a midterm review while you're also adding to a midterm review it.will.save.your.life! Just spend a couple minutes, get on YouTube watch a quick tutorial nothing crazy just a quick rundown, y’all, I am telling you it will do wonders. Next piece of advice will have to be not to compare yourself to other students. My first semester of college at a four-year University I went all out on the school supplies, I bought so many journals, I bought so many sticky notes and planners and different colored pens and sharpies and highlighters. I had index cards, I had binders, I had sectional post-its, basically if office depot sold it I had it in my backpack.  I quickly learned that I did not need half of that crap, but when you're excited about going to your first year of college you want to be prepared and if you're like me I watched other people’s YouTube videos about their experiences and things that worked for them and so I tried to pick and choose what I thought would work for me. Long story short it did not  help and I think that really played a big part in my self-loathing in a sense because I would see all these other students super organized with beautiful handwriting, multi colored notes and just over the top every day, never faltering, just like the perfect student it seemed. It's okay not to be super organized, it's okay not to have the perfect notes, it's okay if all of your notes from all of your classes are in one notebook, if it works for you, it works for you.  No matter what that may be, just keep in mind that this is your college journey no one else’s. Finally, I will emphasize to invest money in a good backpack. Like do not take the backpack from high school with you, I did that, and it was a disaster honestly. It is like my dad used to say growing up, “you get what you pay for.” You are going to be carrying a lot of stuff, probably a tablet, a laptop, textbooks, journals, binders, you name it and you need support for your shoulders, for you back and for your neck. I say this from experience, my college campus is one of the largest public universities in the state of Texas, it takes me 20 minutes to get from my car to the campus, once on campus, I have another eight minute walk to get to my first class. So, it is detrimental to me and my physical health to have a good backpack with support that holds everything and equally distributes the weight correctly. I know this sounds crazy but that is probably the one thing besides getting a good laptop that I would invest a lot of money in. Lastly, I will leave you with this, college is a scary experience for many people and right now we're in very uncertain times which only adds to the stress, but I want you to know that there are resources out there for you and other students and faculty who are more than willing to work with you and accommodate accordingly. Please do not be afraid to reach out to anybody for any type of assistance whether it be academic, mental or physical help, we are all in this together. Be kind to one another and stay curious. -SLR

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A killers brain

Why do some innocent kids grow up to become cold-blooded serial killers? Is bad biology partly to blame? For more than three decades Adrian Raine has been researching the biological roots of violence and establishing neuro-criminology, a new field that applies neuroscience techniques to investigate the causes and cures of crime. Using techniques of psychology and neuroscience to connect the dots between the social factors associated with crime and the physiology of the brain. Nero-imaging technology has provided mounting evidence for something intuitive and long-suspected: damage to the brain can manifest in the form of dramatic changes in personality. Those changes might include poor impulse control or decreased empathy, which could contribute to a tendency toward violence.   People at risk for violent behavior are exposed to many different potential sources of brain damage, like malnutrition, physical abuse, and environmental toxins. And when it comes to the brain, the most important environment is the one it is when it first begins to develop — the womb. The same slate of dangers, along with pregnancy complications, such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, can be passed from mother to child, and their risks are amplified by the formative state of the organ in question. Even the stress of living in a dangerous environment can increase the risk, further strengthening the vicious feedback loop of poverty and crime.  Knowing the fundamentals of brain chemistry provides an avenue for preventing or potentially repairing the damage caused by these factors.

Dr. Raine, a professor at the university of Pennsylvania, outlines a public-health approach to prevent violent crime that is both social and physiological: a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and nutritional interventions. This multifaceted approach, combined with a better understanding of the physiological or environmental risk factors, could mean preventing crimes decades before they were to occur. Raine documents from genetic research that the seeds of sin are sown early in life, giving rise to abnormal physiological functioning that cultivates crime. Drawing on classical case studies of well-known killers in history—including Richard Speck, Ted Kaczynski, and Henry Lee Lucas—Raine illustrates how impairments to brain areas controlling our ability to experience fear, make good decisions, and feel guilt predispose us to violence. He contends that killers can actually be coldhearted: something as simple as a low resting heart rate can give rise to violence. But arguing that biology is not destiny, he also sketches out provocative new bio-social treatment approaches that can change the brain and prevent violence.

Biology plays a much bigger role than we initially thought. What makes them a killer, is there a switch? and why? You can say that some were born evil, but I believe that we can move on from that and we can prove brain dysfunction can explain as to why these people do what they do.

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Why do we have a “perversion” for serial killers?

Why is it that we want so badly to better understand the mind of the serial killer? Why do we almost romanticize the household names such as Bundy, Dahmer, Kemper, and Ramirez? Do we feel like we can fix the mistakes that their parents may have done. Maybe we can prevent these monsters from happening if we can find the root the what makes these men and women exist who commit these heinous crimes. Are these people made through “bad parenting” or are they born evil. The age old question of nature V. nurture. We want so badly to understand these people the FBI even has a Behavioral Analysis Unit (Yes, its a real thing) , unfortunately its success rate is extremely low. 

What about the sexual deviance that happens during the murders? Or the cannibalism? I for one can not think of a time I had a urge to know what human flesh or muscle would taste like. But Dahmer did. Numerous times. What about the necrophilia that Kemper, Bundy, Dahmer engaged in? How does a corpse trigger sexual arousal? Is the hypothalamus in these individuals somehow damaged or wired differently?

I will have a podcast posted soon about these questions as well as some scholarly evidence that may support us with some answers!

In the meantime I have included a link to a book on Dahmers psychology below called Of Men and Monsters: Jeffrey Dahmer and the Construction of the Serial Killer

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9E9navv807cC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=jeffrey+dahmer+psychology&ots=FI8QdTm-hi&sig=qNa9pHwV4SsaVXC-IxRLPFAnj1U#v=onepage&q=jeffrey%20dahmer%20psychology&f=false