Reflection

 

A look into the past:

A reflection of my thoughts on our assignments

 

These past four months have been quite the experience for me as I continued to learn and evolve my English vocabulary and knowledge. I partook in multiple assignments over the semester, some in which that were fun and helped me learn more about my classmates and some that were somewhat boring however necessary for the future work environment. This paper will reflect my thoughts on everything that happened over the course of the four months, including my opinions on assignments and overall the experience that I had. I hope you enjoy the ride.

First off is my introduction, this is a brief explanation of who I am and what I’m looking to do at this college, along with some of my interests/hobbies. It’s not too long so there’s not much to talk about here however for this assignment I did enjoy reading other’s introductions. It showed me that appearance is something that’s pretty interesting because there were some people who I would never think would be interested in certain things and it turns out they were.

Anyways enough about that assignment and on to the next one, Our resume and cover letters. This assignment I would categorize as one of the more “annoying” ones only because of how precise everything needed to be in terms of organization and the template. However, this assignment is very good to know and practice/keep in mind because it will definitely be needed in the future when searching for job opportunities and I do know this. Still a bit annoying to write though. I did have a bit of fun with it though, recalling past experiences and classes to be able to put on there was fun and it also showed me that I need way more experience to be able to fill the resume a bit longer than that.

Following this came the interview reports. We were prepared on this prior to the prior assignments because this particular assignment was meant to be longer than the previous ones. This one was a bit fun and interesting because I was able to reunite with a past friend and visit upstate NY for the interview. This assignment was fun and a bit exciting because I have never been to Albany and was able to learn a lot from the person I was interviewing as he is a Computer Science major. One thing I did not enjoy about this or any other assignment in any class for that matter is the presentation portion of it. I don’t know the reason, but I always come out a bit nervous in front of a new crowd of people if I’m not used to class or group yet. I do know this is an important skill to master and I hope these presentations help me get over this issue. Other than that, this assignment was pretty enjoyable and hope it remains in the curriculum for this class.

Next up in terms of projects was the lab report assignment. This assignment was another instructional assignment in order to help the students understand how to compose a proper lab report for the use in the future. During this assignment it was quite tedious rolling a dice 100 times in order to fulfill the lab however there will be much more difficult experiments in the future that will need to be completed so I might as well get used to it now rather than later. After recording all 100 rolls I followed the format that was given to me in class on the board. This format that was taught to us is very important to memorize in order to use in the distant future. Doing this assignment was a little fun to see the results that popped up from rolling a dice 100 times and I believe everyone should experience this fun little lab as a break from the more difficult ones in other classes.

Now for my favorite project out of all the others, the proposal project. This project was my favorite out of all the assignments given to us in this class because of mainly two reasons. Reason one being that we got to choose a topic of anything if its relatable and kind of needed. So, we went with fixing the bathrooms at our college as it is in dire need of some assistance. Reason two being that in this project it allowed me to make some friends and get to know quite a few cool people in my class who I feel as if I would never have talked to if it wasn’t for this assignment. The outside work was enjoyable as well, we met up and chatted about how we wanted to approach the setup and the presentation which also allowed us to grow a bond between us. Then came the day of presentation and when everyone nailed it, we were very proud of the work we put it and it was a rewarding experience.

Following the amazing projects and presentations of the rest of my classmates we then had to prepare for the next project and a grammar “quest”. The next project was a topic of our own choosing and this time it was a solo endeavor. I had chosen the subject of Cyber Security and I indulged in researching about what kind of threats, and issues we face during the use of online security. In the beginning I saw this as a fun little project as I got to learn more about a potential job opportunity in the future however when it came time to presentation, I was worried that I won’t be able to present well again. So, I chose a more later date to better prepare myself for the presentation and once I actually went up there and executed it, I was able to feel more comfortable talking in front of my class more so than earlier in the semester. It was a good feeling and I felt as if the past experiences really helped me grow.

Overall this course was pretty enjoyable, I did learn some new stuff that I wasn’t expecting such as APA citation, and how to use the online library that I never really touched upon till recently. The textbook is worth a read if you wish to better understand the topics in this class. Group collaboration is also an important skill that is sometimes annoying if certain people won’t pull their weight however luckily that wasn’t an issue this time around. We also learned what it means to consider the audience and purpose as it’s a writer’s main concern when making a piece, whether it be a speech, essay or something else. This is a course that I’d consider necessary in order to be able to communicate in the working world and one shouldn’t forget the techniques that were taught. It’s a class that was a fun ride and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s willing to learn some new stuff or further their knowledge.