Jonathan Rojas - Critical Thinking Module 2 - Barriers

[jonrojas]

    My life was filled with a lot of bad decisions that could of used some critical thinking when I think back to find an example for this module. One moment that really stuck out to me though was when I first started going back to school to get my degree in computer networking. That first year was the hardest year for me and I honestly didn't do as good as I could of because I didn't take the time to really critically think about what going back to school meant and I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't have a good track record in high school and my first attempt at college wasted a lot of time and money. I jumped right into a 4 year degree and thought I would be able to just wing it and the complete opposite happened. The school had an accelerated curriculum that had 8 week semesters instead of 15 week semesters. I was not prepared at all for the work load that it would entail. I barely got by the first half of the year and I managed to salvage the second half enough so that I didn't fail out of college. Not only did it catch me off guard but it crushed my confidence. I was really close to backing out of school but in the end I decided to stick out. That whole first year could of been so different if I applied myself and gave it some critical thought. Fortunately I was able to prepare myself mentally for the second year and it was no where near as hard as the first year.

    Thinking back, if I had applied critical thinking to the thought of going back to the school, it would not have been so hard for me that first year. I needed to take a step back and recognize what the requirements for going back to the school full time were. If I would of paid more attention to the curriculum I would of known that they had an accelerated program. I later on found out that there were prep courses that I could of taken to help get me ready for the work that the program required. Taking the time to objectively think about it would of helped me to find that out earlier. I instead let my previous habits and biases about school effect how I approached going back and it almost caused me to ruin my dream of graduating. My GPA overall could of been way better if I didn't do so bad in my first year of classes. My mistakes that first year were a defining moment for me and would go on to change who I was as a person and how I approached everything in life. All of this leads me to question if not going through those mistakes would be worth it but that is a discussion for another day. 

[Leslie]

Hi Jonathan,

I believe prior experiences do impact our present realities. As adults we sometimes make commitments to ourselves and others without fully executing our plan of action. In most cases this is done with good intention. We believe we are capable of achieving a goal and we go for it. For me taking the time to critically think my way through as situation, might also feel like the backdoor out of that situation. So, I just dive in and hope for the best. I see through our examination of critical thinking that taking the time to develop a plan ensures that I am developing a plan that's actually possible.

[paulwickson]

Thanks for this post Jon around the example where you felt you didn't use critical thinking skills. You've outlined with the benefit of hindsight what may have been different if you had applied these skills. Where could you have sourced this additional information from at the time to enable you to understand the requirements needed to go back to school full-time? Who could you have asked or what other information could you have obtained to apply a critical thinking framework to this example?