College Students: Managing Your Money

Chapter 1

• Managing money in college is important and involves understanding budgets, credit cards, credit unions vs. banks, grants, scholarships, and loans.
• Budgets help define and achieve goals and aid in making important decisions about the flow of money.
  • The balance should be positive and growing, not negative.
• Credit cards and banks help manage money with services like checking/savings accounts and ATMs.
• Institutions with free or minor fee services, no minimum balance, and competitive interest rates exist.
• Credit unions may offer lower rates on services than banks.
• Scholarships and grants do NOT need to be repaid.
  • FAFSA offers free financial aid sources.
• Scholarships are awarded for achievements, sometimes to specific groups either as one-time awards or renewable.
  • The application process involves submission of essays, letters of recommendation, and proof of achievements.
• Grants are awarded based on financial need.
  • Provided by governments or institutions, and may be limited to a certain number of years.
  • Applications are through FAFSA.
• Loans need to be repaid.
  • Stafford loans offer the lowest interest rates.
  • In some instances, the government pays interest costs until repayment begins.
• Credit cards should be used with caution.
  • Usage often involves monthly payments to pay for past purchases and can have devastating effects on credit scores if not used and paid off correctly.
• Understanding the culture of higher education is important

Syllabus & Culture

• A syllabus contains essential information about the course:
• Learning objectives
• Homework assignments
• Course rules
• Course grading scale
• Moodle is computer software that allows colleges to offer class content on the Internet.
• Surface culture includes aspects like food, fashion, language, gestures, art, games and music.
• Deep culture encompasses norms, beliefs, rules, attitudes, opinions, taboos, expectations, and world views.
• Key Expectations for Higher Education:
• Educators expect students to be responsible for their education.
• Educators expect students to be highly motivated to succeed.
• Educators expect students to attend classes regularly and complete all assignments to the best of their ability.
• Educators expect students to collaborate with peers and make use of help to achieve academic success.
• Educators expect students to change when what they are doing is not working.
• Educators expect students to demonstrate a passion for learning.
• Educators expect students to manage their emotions and the emotions of others, in the service of their goals.
• Educators expect students to have realistic self-confidence about themselves and their ability to succeed in college.
• Guidelines for writing meaningful journal entries include copying directions, being spontaneous, honest, creative, and diving deep.
• The ingredients of success include developing necessary skills, inner strengths like persistence, self-confidence, and motivation, and establishing soft and hard skills.
• Hard skills represent things learned, are easy to measure, e.g., writing, math. Interpersonal traits developed over time.
• Soft skills are difficult to measure, e.g., persistence, self-confidence.
• The eight inner strengths measured in self-assessment are important, shaping many of the important choices made.

Chapter 2 : Mindsets

• A creator mindset enables people to see multiple options, choose wisely, and take effective actions, while a victim mindset keeps people from seeing and acting on choices that could help them.
• Choice is the key ingredient of personal responsibility.
• Even not making a choice is a choice.
• An inner critic is the internal voice that judges us as inadequate.
• Accepts too much responsibility and blames us for whatever goes wrong in our lives.
• The inner defender judges others instead, accepting too little responsibility, involving blaming, complaining, accusing, criticizing, judging, and condemning.
• The inner guide seeks to make the best of any situation and knows that judgment doesn't improve difficult situations.
• The Wise Choice Process involves several steps:
• Determining the present situation by identifying the problem or challenge as a creator, not a victim.
• Deciding the preferred situation by determining the desired outcome in the future.
• Generating a list of possible choices without judgment.
• Predicting the likely outcome of each possible choice.
• Committing to specific choices by creating a plan.

Evaluating Beliefs and Plans

• Plans should be re-assessed to determine if results are as desired
• Understand personal responsibility using the A+B=C model, where A is the activating event, B is other beliefs, and C is the consequences.
• Understand disputing irrational beliefs by offering evidence that judgments are incorrect, providing a positive explanation, questioning the importance of the problem, or offering a plan to improve the situation.

Chapter 3: Motivation and Visualization

• The equation V x E = M represents academic motivation.
  • "V" represents value
  • "E" represents expectation
  • "M" represents motivation
• Inner motivation aids in success in college while making a reasonable effort.
• Personal motivation contributes to actions in the workplace and college, fostering self-confidence, open-mindedness, full engagement, inspiration, and courage.
• Surveys indicate that a lack of motivation is a primary barrier to students' success in college.
• About one-third of students in U.S. four-year public colleges and universities fail to return for their second year, and nearly half of first-year students in public two-year colleges don't make it to a second year.
• A life role is an activity to which large amounts of time and energy are regularly devoted.
• DAPPS elements:
  • Dated
  • Achievable
  • Personal
  • Positive
  • Specific
• Visualization is the formation of a mental image.
• Visualization will help to improve ability and reduce associated fears.
• The 4 keys to visualization:
  • Relaxation
  • Use present tense
  • Use all 5 senses
  • Feel the feelings
• Commitment is an intention that overcomes obstacles.
• Allows to look for solutions.
• Surges from a passionately held purpose.
• A personal affirmation is a statement that claims desired qualities as if already possessed.

Affirmations & Chapter 4 Time Management

• To empower affirmations repeat, dispute inner critic, and align words and deeds.
• Quadrant I includes urgent and important activities done under pressure of nearing deadlines.
• Quadrant II comprises important but not urgent activities done without the pressure of looming deadlines.
• Quadrant III represents unimportant activities done with a sense of urgency.
• Quadrant IV consists of simply time wasters.
• Need to identify examples for each of the four quadrants.
• It is impossible to manage time, but possible to manage ourselves and actions.
• Tools for self-management incude;
  • Monthly calendar-for tracking one-time scheduled events,
  • Weekly calendar: for tracking recurring scheduled events
  • Next actions list: for tracking one-time unscheduled events
  • Tracking forms: for tracking actions that need to be repeated
  • Waiting-for list: for tracking commitments that others have made to you
  • Project folder: for tracking and managing progress toward a large goal

Self-Discipline and CORE

• Self-discipline is willpower and the ability to do something as well as wanting.
• Three ingredients to self-discipline: commitment . focus . persistence
• Self-esteem is our reputation with ourselves.
• Self-confidence develops by stacking small victories and building a succesful identity.
• After experiencing success confidence begins to seep into every corner of our being
• Self- confidence is important and is the belief that I ----CAN!
• Can increase confidence by stacking small victories.
• During Charles Garfields' experiment the group that visualized gave the best speeches
• Hard skills represent learned abilities that can be measured, e.g., writing, math.
• Soft skills are interpersonal traits developed over time and difficult to measure, e.g., persistence, self-confidence.
• The CORE learning system stands for Collect, Organize, Rehearse, and Evaluate.
  • Effectively employs three active learning principles.
• The 3 principles of deep and lasting learning.
  • Prior learning
  • Quality processing
  • Quantity processing
• Active learning encourages conversation and debate.
• Passive learning encourages listening and paying attention to detail.