Staying Updated in the Online Community: The Key to Success in the Digital Age

           

In today's technologically-driven world, social media has emerged as a powerful and pervasive force that has transformed the way we communicate, access information, and engage with the world around us. Social media platforms have become an integral part of our daily lives, serving as avenues for connection, self-expression, and knowledge-sharing. Here I am going to share the significance of social media and its impact on various aspects of our lives, highlighting its benefits as well as potential challenges.

Social media plays a crucial part in our everyday basis. It becomes a habit to us to check our social media to be keep updated to the latest happening in the world. During the pandemic, social media also serve as a tool that eases the communication and interaction with your friends, classmates, teachers, and especially our loved ones or family despite of the distance. This also serve as a medium of sharing your thought , opinion, concept, and ideas. This help us to inform the community through digital ways or to inform and educate ourselves with a new and controversial topics.

As a student Staying updated in the online community is essential for academic success. By accessing reliable educational resources, research articles, and scholarly platforms, I can stay abreast of current developments in their fields of study. This allows me to deepen my understanding, engage in meaningful discussions, and incorporate the latest knowledge into my coursework and assignments. Being up to date with academic trends and advancements ensures that I maintain a competitive edge, excel in my studies, and achieve my academic goals.

The online community offers a vast array of resources beyond traditional academic content. Engaging with blogs, podcasts, webinars, and online courses can broaden students' horizons, expose me to new ideas, and foster personal growth. Staying updated allows myself to explore diverse perspectives, challenge their own beliefs, and develop critical thinking skills. It encourages curiosity, lifelong learning, and a thirst for knowledge that extends beyond the classroom.

Social media has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, revolutionizing the way we connect, communicate, and consume information. It has enhanced connectivity, facilitated information sharing, provided avenues for self-expression, and fueled economic growth. However, it is crucial to strike a balance and use social media responsibly, being mindful of its potential pitfalls. By leveraging the positive aspects while mitigating the challenges, we can harness the power of social media to create a more connected, informed, and inclusive world.

 

PLATFROM THAT I MOST OFTEN USE IN SHARING MY CONCEPTS ONLINE

In the wake of the modern world particularly technology, this helps us to ease our way of living, and as a student, this helps me to overcome all the academic obstacles that I have gone through in my journey of being a learner, especially amid senior high school taking the STEM strand.

As technology has begun to rise, I also started to encounter various online platforms on the internet that helps me and convince me to often used them as a part of my concept sharing online. They become my partner to connect easily to my loved ones and share my thoughts, concepts, and Ideas online. One of these platforms is Facebook, messenger, and Twitter.

With close to 2.9 billion active users, Facebook continues to be the most significant social media platform for many marketers. Facebook is the most well-known social network globally. This is where I post my ideas, gather relevant information, and keep being updated on the latest happening in the world. One of my remarkable experiences in using Facebook in sharing my concept is when I posted a pub mat on our group page to inform the students of Camarines Sur National High School about the activity during the art month held by our club. This eases my task to inform the students to participate in our activity. Facebook was a huge help if we were just going to use it responsibly with our wide range of understanding.

While messenger serves as my best friend to communicate my ideas and concept through a group of people and also individuals online. Sharing my thoughts with them such as ideas about designing a project, concepts about our research, and many more. According to Lama (2022). Messenger was also used after the pandemic as a teaching and learning tool which allows students and teachers to express information, thoughts, and ideas through various features of Messenger such as attaching pictures, sharing videos and website links, presenting slides, and many more.

Lastly, Twitter is a social media platform with the main goal of connecting me to the whole world and enabling me to express my ideas to a large audience. I can follow people or businesses who post content they enjoy reading, learn about the greatest news and events happening right now, or just use Twitter to connect with pals. This doesn’t just help me in sharing my thoughts, ideas, and concepts, but also helps me to educate myself, learn something, and discover new sets of knowledge.

All of these platforms are equally useful and relevant to me as I use them responsibly. This helps me to fill my knowledge gap and enables me to express my feelings, thoughts, ideas, stories, and concepts freely. This also serves as my tool to know the unknown things. As I scroll through these social media platforms, every day I discover new things that help me to shape a better version of myself. I do believe that all things have their bright side, we just need to deepen our thinking to make them useful in our everyday life, particularly in this evolving world.

MY LIFE OF BEING A STEM STUDENT

    Choosing the STEM strand for me was a huge mistake back then. When I first walked into our classroom, it was wrapped in silence and full of intelligent and intimidating people. I cannot even imagine being friends with them or even having a little interaction. But the moment I sat on my chair the realization slowly struck my mind that if I am not going to take this strand I would be nothing in the future. 

    I am Queencess Michaela Fausto, my dream was to be an Architect. In particular, architecture is just like math, and I despise math because it's confusing and drains me more than the other subject. Architecture was known for requiring a lot of problem-solving, critical thinking, in-depth analysis, computation, and measurements. However, I really want to be an Architect, but deep inside, how? How can I become an architect if I cannot do math? How can I become an architect if I am scared?

    I asked for a sign from god and he gave me a lot of reasons why I should take all of these risks no matter how hard and suffocating my life could be if I end up choosing the career path that I am not good at. Nearly nine months had passed since the school year started. I can still remember the first time Sir Marlon ask me to share my opinion about the COVID-19 pandemic. I am so worried about my speech what if I stuttered in the midts of my speech in front of my classmate? Walking through the aisle, I breathe before I started reading the text, afterward, I suddenly realized that I am already done reading it and all of the people in the room were clapping their hands about the speech I delivered. I returned to my seat with a smile on my face. 

    Days had passed, and August slipped away into a moment of time, the orientation week is over, and here's the hell week. There was this moment when I didn't sleep for just one subject, and it was so frustrating having a teacher that expects too much from me because you were a STEM student. We are expected to exceed the bare minimum of a student. I will never forget how my Stats teacher told us that since we are STEM students, we can do anything. It breaks my heart knowing to myself that I'm just an ordinary and just being entitled as a STEM student. 

    We are usually being generalized by our teachers as smart, a mathematician, future engineers, and doctors but in reality, as I asked my fellow STEM students, not all of us are sure about our paths, there are a few that was still undecided, but there is one thing they are sure with, they want to be known as who they really are and not be known as the STEM student who can solve the math equations, a student who knows to balance a chemical equation or a student that is capable enough to do whatever you plan to ask to them to achieve. 

    I was full of hope that someday this stereotyping would end soon. I'm so sick of being referred to as the clever girl by my family, friends, teachers, and stranger that sees my I.D. that has a "STEM" word written on it. I want to be known as Queencess who enjoys playing taekwondo, doing art and crafts, loves chatting with her friends, a person who is strong, kindhearted, and lastly a person who wants to fulfill her dreams no matter how hard her life was.

    In just a few months, I will no longer be in grade 11, I cannot even barely imagine that I will pass all the challenges my life has given to me 9 months ago. The one thing that I will never forget in my grade 11 journey as a STEM student is the fact that I struggled a lot to find a circle of friends, I can still remember how badly I was treated by some people, but thanks to them, they made me realize that they don't deserve me and I have to find someone that will fully accept me despite of my flaws and lacks. They shaped, helped, and supported me with their kind hearts through my ups and downs.

    My senior high school life as a STEM student wouldn't be that great or perfect. It might be full of challenges, tears, sleepless nights, discouragement, and disappointment but this taught me a lesson that no matter how hard it is, I know that at the end of the day, I don't have a choice but just to go with the flow and comply all the task that I need to be accomplished. I do believe that this struggle would pay off soon with achievement and success. I do believe that STEM strand would help me to better visualize my near future.

    As I end this story of mine, I would like to thank my family and friends for always loving, supporting, and helping me, and to my best friends Shannon and Jowe who is always there to comfort me when I'm crying due to failures and disappointments. Whatever I become in the near future, my experience, journey, hardships, and all the people who helped me to go through this obstacle will remain in my heart forevermore.