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My name is Dana Rankin and I'm currently studying Network Engineering. I'm married and a video game addict. After years of working odd jobs I finally decided to give getting my degree a chance.  I tried being a twitch streamer along with working a normal job but it didn't work for me. So my plan B was to go to school. I'm glad I did. Just reading about the opportunity's I may have motivates me to study hard.

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I used to procrastinate a lot. I would wait until the last minute to do everything. That lead to me missing things and turning in assignments late. So I took the advise I read in one of the modules and used my time wiser. I get my homework done first and I also make more time before studying.

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Before this class I never wrote anything down let alone set a goal. I would just set a reminder in my phone and do whatever "goal" I would set for the day then. Now as I type this there is a notepad with the order I should I do my finals and the date they are due. This has helped me so much and since I've started doing this I've gotten better at turning in assignments.

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I needed to budget better. I spend way to much money on food and unneeded purchases. From Amazon to random fast food stops, I would just put my self further behind my goal of improving my home and one day going on vacation. While in this class I checked out some budget helping apps. I love the alerts I get about my spending. Now I just go to the store and pick up food that's not to hard to cook. I slow cook food and eat off that for a few days. From my last check I saved 321 dollars so yeah thanks classmates for the budgeting app ideas.

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My favorite thing that I learned in this class is that it takes 30 days for something to become a habit. There was a video by Thomas Frank I saw during this course. He explained things that he was doing in his life that ran concurrent with mine. I used to keep soda near me even though I wasn't thirsty I would drink it and go get another can. Thanks to his words I've tried dieting. I've been on Keto diet for around 24 days now and the food that I used to eat everyday I don't really miss that much. I learned about Thomas Frank from this class and I'm grateful for that.

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Another thing I have learned to do is manage my stress better. I take an English class this semester and I feel it's my toughest class. With my work schedule I felt like I would never get it done without rushing to write papers and accepting whatever grade I would get. So I took a shot and emailed my professor and her response to me took a huge weight off my shoulders. A module in this class about communicating and taking mini breaks to reduce stress really helped. While my favorite thing to do is play video games, I use them as a reward for getting things done instead of letting them add to my poor time management.

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Is that I need to network and do more to find a job in my field. I learned a few things about this in this class. First I need to look beyond where I live to possibly find a job in the tech field. I live in Dayton Ohio, but most of the good paying tech jobs are in Columbus and Cincinnati. I wasn't looking to go that far due to me owning a house in Dayton. But as time passes and I get wiser I have to be willing to possibly travel or even move to improve my quality of life. I'm going to talk to my own manager about tech positions in my current workplace. And if I need to I will volunteer I really want a job in my field I just have to push harder to get there.

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I have to improve on my note taking and research. Note taking is so important but I sometimes felt like it was a waste of time. It's been 12 years since I've been in school a teacher recommending me visit the Writing Lab was a great choice. This helped me learn about ever-note and organizing my time. When it came to researching things I never knew how good the Sinclair database was. While I mostly use Google. The Sinclair Library database is fantastic and the more I learned about it the more I've used it. This provided me with so much help with my English class as it provided concise results and helped me target my reading and research much better. Will use it for every class in the future.