Nick Hoyt

Journal #1

Weeks 1-3

8/31-9/18

13 hour class periods

Total hours: 13

During the first three weeks we spent a lot of time in the class room setting.  During this time Mr. Ashcraft talked about the IR class and how everything works, and what we were going to do this year. We talked about how to find a topic and how everyone is going a topic that they are interested in.  During the first few weeks it was a lot of repeated stuff that I heard last year so it was pretty boring for me.  I did feel that it helped though because it began to get me thinking of what I am going to do this year for my project.  We spent a long time talking about scholarly research and how to make research into scholarly research.  That help make me think about where I am going to go this year with my project.  I already had the topic of solar energy in mind and I had already started to do some research over the summer.  During the first few weeks we also talked a lot about the importance of finding and advisor.  That reminded me that I still had to get in contact with the possible advisor that I had in mind. During the three weeks me and the other second year IR students also presented our projects from the previous year to show everyone a basic idea of where they are going to be at the end of the year.  We also talked about the path that we had to take to get there and some of the difficulties that we had. Mr. Ashcraft also talked about the portfolios and how we are getting new portfolios this year, so I am interested to see what happens.  During the third week I was able to start to get online and I got started on doing my own personal research.  I already have about 5 annotated bibliographies done for this year and I am still continuing my research.  During the third week Mr. Ashcraft also asked everyone to write a schedule for the entire month to see when they have free time for IR work out of school.  I found out that I didn’t have that much time since I have a really busy schedule with football and SAT prep classes and well as other things, but I was able to make time in my schedule.  I think that this year will be a good year and I am ready to get more involved in my own personal research.