Academic Goals

Setting goals give me the motivation I need so that I know I am working toward something I really want. My goals are my reminder that no matter how hard the task maybe I must take each one of them head on to accomplish them. Goals may change along the way however the result of them will never, and that is the feeling of success and accomplishment that I will feel knowing I’ve done all I can and set my mind to.

Setting goals for yourself is an important aspect to help achieve success in life. Setting goals not only helps guide you to be successful, but also helps a person believe in themselves

Whether we like to believe it goals play an important part in our lives. They keep us on track with what we want to accomplish in life. Some of my biggest goals were made as a child and others where just by surprise. However now I have much different goals set for myself. I have three main goals that can be separated into a personal, professional, and academic area. A personal goal is to become a great runner and roll model. A professional goal of mine is to become a nurse to help others in need and finally, my academic goal is to get a 3.5 GPA and graduate college. All these goals can be accomplished with hard work and dedication just like any other goal in life. We all want to strive for the best and sometimes we need smaller goals to help

These smaller goals can span any amount of time, short-term or long-term (Massey, 2014). Having smaller sub-goals will help make the main goal appear more achievable, and celebrating the completion of each of these sub-goals will serve as a catalyst to keep the student excited and motivated as they continue along their educational journey (Williams, 2014). By not setting smaller goals and missing larger goals, students will get discouraged and feel like failures (Williams, 2011).

Some examples of these goals are, doing well in all of my classes, getting a job, or joining clubs. Although these ideas are useful to work towards, they fail to meet the SMART criteria. This criteria, explored by Locke (2004) and extensively used in business and academic settings, allows one to create suitable goals for themselves. A SMART goal should be “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time Based.” My working goal, created after self evaluation and assessment, is Achieving and maintaining a 3.3 GPA for the winter 2016 semester. This goal satisfies all SMART criteria, and is of an adequate level of challenge. In order to meet my goal for the end of the Winter semester, I have defined some specific task and actions needed to be taken. First, since this goal is academic, I must clearly define study habits and routines. Rather than simply reading text or taking notes, I will assign specific times for study. It is suggested that for every hour of in-class instructional time, two to three hours of work should be done out of class. I determined that I am in class for 14 hours and 30 minutes per week. This means I should assign at least 29 hours of time outside of lecture periods for study, research, and assignments. To meet these requirements, I can assign specific hours for each day as study time. In order to combat procrastination, I will apply methods that allow me to get a head-start on my work, and ensure I have a balanced work load around due dates. In order to keep up with my progress, in my case, GPA, I will use blackboard, and keep up to date with my professors. To successfully reach my goal by the end of the semester, I will also take advantage of various support tools and

Goal setting allows individuals to holistically evaluate if their goal is possible and what will be needed in order to obtain that goal. Setting goals allow individuals and groups to become better equipped to arrange timelines for the future. Along with establishing timelines, goals can be utilized as motivation for success or positive movements. In other words, motivation is the key to overcoming difficult obstacles when trying to obtain a goal. Also, setting goals will enable persons to evaluate whether their goal is attainable, considering what has already happened and the possibilities of the future. Specific and realistic goals for me include:

Continuing Academic Success remain beneficial to my life by reason of I hunger a better paying job to provide for my family and I realize studying strong and working hard will secure success in school and in life. The benefits of creating an educational goal remain as follows limitations of stress, focus on time management and lastly exceptional writing skills.

What motivates you? Achieving success in nearly all areas of my life is motivation, since often times I am a perfectionist. Accomplishing my goals provides its own reward.

2. The other aspect is the aggressiveness of the goal; this is important; because an aggressive objective will challenge my current abilities and force me to work harder in order to make myself better.

My need for achievement is of paramount importance in nearly all of my decisions. As a freshman in at the University of Maryland I think a lot about my future. I plan on going to graduate school after I graduate with my bachelors in computer science, a dream I have had since I was a child. Everything I have achieved thus far is part of my goal of attending a great, prestigious graduate school. The Opportunity Canvas Analysis speaks of seven different areas an achieving individual uses in order to be successful. An important achievement component I use is setting goals for myself and others around me. Accomplishing my goals is important to me and it is essential to have small group goals in order to achieve the overall goal. Another important

Setting a goal increases motivation as it furnishes a target for all to aim for through team

1. Attainability: As I have always been working on something new to be where I am today, so fat I have set out goals like to apply to a graduate school and that was successful, submitted and received and under process. My goal is to attain admission into the graduate school, and since every step of that process have been implemented, I am optimistic that the desired goal will eventually be attained when the admission team made decisions on my application.

To achieve anything in life, there needs to be a strategy and a path to get there. Whichever I plan on accomplishing, I must have a strategic method of getting to that point. By doing so I would form small attainable markers along the way to reach my main goal. With these goals will benefit me in being successful and achieving who I want to be in life and as an individual.

The drive to stay in school is another big part of setting goals. Without the drive to stay in school, you lose site of those nice things that can be achieved with hard work. Drive also motivates you to do the things that you don't want to do, but have to do them. Things like writing papers, studying for exams, and going to school during the summer. The drive to achieve your goals will help you through these tough times. Through the tough times, think about all of those goals you are trying to achieve, and how nice it is going to be when you reach them.

> Keep my home and professional life levelled so that my achievement plans will be a success.