Reflection Paper

As my first semester at Rosemont College is coming to an end soon, I would like to tell you how I got here and how will I stay here. While applying to college Rosemont was not first choice. It was on the bottom of my list. But when I came to visits and listened to what the tour guides were saying I thought Rosemont would be the place for me. The biggest problem, for me was I wanted to stay close to home. I have family at home that I really did not want to be away from, it was my first time being away from home. I know that being away from home would be a change for me, it was a hard decision to make but I made it! The first step of getting to Rosemont was applying into then coming to visit, after my first visit I was still uninterested into the school. The campus was dull and dry and I did not see any students walking around or any of them coming out of class. Shortly after Spring Break of 2017 I had to make a choice. I began to look at the bigger picture of why I wanted to go. While Rosemont was not a place that I wanted to come, but I knew that I would get all my work done and more. I was happy I made the decision I made, because I am staying focus getting all of my work done.

Science Instructional Analysis and Methods class has afforded me countless learning experiences which I have taken into my intern classroom. I have several take away for this fall’s science methods course. The first being, in Methods class I learned to work in distinct groups of with peers of various levels. My peers who are experiencing classroom teaching for the first time and the graduate interns. Surprisingly, I learned from working with both of these groups. From the graduate level students, I was able to actually make a connection with the content we read about in our text and experiences I had everyday in internship. I appreciate the opportunity, as I felt safe and free to ask questions about the experiences they had in teaching science. I commend you on the way you had broken up the class groups, and afforded us to work with different groups. During this process, I feel I have started to find my voice as a professional. This opportunity allowed me to be more confident to voice my ideas to the teachers I worked with in internship, as I contribute to my PLC group.

Process recordings have been very helpful in allowing me to see my strengths and areas that need improvement. It allows for me to check if I am using my competencies correctly and applying all the skills I have been thought. They also allow for feedback from my field supervisor so that I ensure the best services for my clients. I gain a better understanding of what I need to change about my approach and how to develop proper treatment goals with my clients. I get to put the knowledge I gained in all my classes to help a better understanding of the role of a social worker.

I was a horrible writer since I was in high school, and I 've always had hard times writing essays for writing classes. I knew I had to improve a lot on how to establish academic essays and learn to come up with good ideas. Every time I make up a mind to concentrate on writing a good academic essay, I always end up rushing through rest of the essay after spending few hours on it. It was easy for me to essays until I took this WR 122 taught my Professor Wood. When I compare myself today with me from the past as a writer, I 've improved numerous amount of skills on writing. Not only I can now write essays better and faster, I 've gather many things about how academic essays are written, and doing researches on essay never seemed so easy after I took this class.

Over the course of the semester, there has been numerous amount of areas where I believe I have improved in comparison to high school. What has helped me in my writing is the writing class and the in-class writing workshop. The writing class that is located in the Kremen education building has helped me with my writing greatly because in the writing center the person in charge teach us lenses and we apply those lenses to the writing, draft, or reading that someone brings in. The in-class writing workshop has helped me because other students get to read my writing. This is helpful because I get feedback from many students and they let me know what needs to be fixed. A new tool I have been using is They Say I Say. The book is very helpful because of the information and examples it provides such as the templates. I have been applying the templates into my essays and I have seen a significant difference.

Of the many writing experiences I’ve had as both a student and a military officer, two events stand out that shaped both my appreciation of and confidence in writing. The first happened when I was in grade school and involved my father. He enrolled in a basic computer class sponsored by his employer and I clearly remember him agonizing over a short writing assignment to describe the applications for computers. I remember thinking it seemed like a simple task, but for him it was an arduous process for which he was not prepared. The second incident occurred during my MBA studies, working in a group of three on a capstone research project. As the integrator of our combined contributions, I was astounded when one of my project partners sent his portion, of which a large section had the faint blue background evident of a cut-and-paste from Wikipedia, yet no citations. These cases stick out because of what I’ve found are two truths in writing.

As Rocky Balboa once said, " it's not about how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, keep moving forward. It's how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done." This man believed that nothing is going to hit you as hard as life. Which means life will hit you pretty hard and it's all about taking it and keep moving forward. This quote has guided my life, there has been times where something has happened in which it brought me down but after a short while I have always recovered, got back on my feet, and moved on in my life.

Since the beginning of the semester, my writing has changed and evolved to accommodate and sustain longer essays. With longer essays, there is more room for in-depth analysis. Further analyzing a topic has led me to findings that I did not know existed. As I continue to write, I uncover addition and superior methods to approach my writing to the benefit of me and therefore, my audience. Throughout the semester, I have incorporated techniques to further my narrative throughout my writing.

As a type-A individual, I really do not like it when things do not go as they have been planned. Unfortunately, this has caused some additional stresses and anxieties in my life which I do not have much control over. As a double-major, it is so crucial to stay organized and have a schedule to stay organized and complete everything that is required of me. But, college can be stressful, but I think that I am handling it much better than I could have imagined. Throughout my educational experiences here during my second year at UConn, I have been able to handle stresses much better than I have previously in high school and especially throughout my freshman year. As I am writing this, I realized that by surrounding myself with individuals who I know are positive influences on me and planning time for myself, I am able to reduce stresses in my life.

I like to think I’m the artsy type, but I know I fit into that category in a more realistic and applicable sense of the word. I’m messy, scatterbrained, horrifically unorganized, and always covered in paint. With these characteristics comes an interesting approach to my writing process: sporadic motivation followed by procrastination, and finally deadline panic. Throughout this collection of essays, drafts, and musings, my mechanisms of writing have been refined through the action of drafting, self revision, and peer revision. Historically, when I write papers, I sit and reflect for days at a time on the essay, or rather how late I can put off actually writing said essay. Drafting has, however, forced me to put my thoughts to paper earlier than the night before the due date. It slows my deadline motivated, caffeine fueled mind enough to actually comprehend and plan out what I write as I write it. Never before have I embraced the slow, laborious mechanisms of drafting. Identity becomes the string that connects each work within this portfolio, either pertaining to the thesis of the individual essays or expressing itself poetically.

In the tapestry of life, I’ve learned to be accustomed to people from diverse colors of race, textures of beliefs and patterns of culture. In every stage and in different settings, I have been surrounded by different threads of individuals with their unique life experiences. Each experience and relationship have women me into an expressive piece of fabric that rejects the narrowness of uniformity.

What Shapes a child's mind? A main influence on the development of a child's mind is the authority figures in their life. What they say and do influences how the child reacts to situations and feels. In my Sophomore year of high school I was introduced to the new head coach for the high school soccer team. This man would shape the person I became in the matter of one year.

Matthew 22:37 says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Mark Noll emphasizes that Evangelical Christians are not loving God with their minds. Noll shares that if Christians do not become well-informed intellectuals, they will not be able to lead others to Christ. When I reflect on my religious upbringing, I realize how much truth I accepted came from humans, and not from scripture. When people challenged some of my beliefs, I was not able to support myself, because I accepted what I heard as truth. I am thankful that God has showed me the importance of wisdom in my faith.

With the help of STEP, transition to Mason is pretty manageable to control myself what to do and what not. I’m getting used to my daily schedule with classes, sleep hours, and social time with my friends. Sometimes it’s hard to push myself to go to class, but my friends are giving me motivation and I also give them motivation by forcing ourselves to reach our goals. One of our goals is to maintain or make a 4.0 of GPA because we know as we go up the grades, the harder to keep the good grades. It’s difficult to stay up at night and in the day to finish some assignments, but we learned that it will be all worth it and paid off at the end through STEP.

To an extent, I have lived a sheltered life. I grew up with a helicopter mother, an anxious father, and two over-protective older brothers who wanted me to live a happy, healthy, and safe life. They shielded me from everything bad: death, war, pain, destruction, and suffering. I was -- and still am -- the baby of the family; I will forever be the little baby girl who needs to be watched over and taken care of. To them, I am innocent and fragile and delicate and small.