Christen Roper
English 102
Tasha Thomas
22 April 2015
My Own Reflection
This year has been one hectic and
stressful year for my first year as a college freshman. I knew I was getting
into a lot when I began my school year at USC: Upstate, but I didn’t know how
stressful it would be. I do think, however, that it was a great year and that I
was able to do the best that I could into my freshman year. I am now a rising
sophomore, and I know more will be handed to me, but I think I can manage.
English was a big step for me as
well. I have always loved English growing up but this is the first time that I
was able to voice my own opinion as a writer, and not have to deal with the
requirement grade school had put on us. I think I have clearly evolved as a thinker,
reader, and writer now.
In elementary school to high school,
you are only told to follow the steps toward your college career, you are not
able to think on your own, and you have to listen to what everyone else is
saying. Coming from a family of free thinkers, that’s very hard, but I feel
that college actually let me talk for once. They let me pull my own voice out
of the cave it had called home and shine brighter every day. I was able to tell
everyone my thoughts on certain articles in school, and even throw myself under
the bus as well. I found that out from the “Extra Lives” article and how people
thought that gaming so much was odd. I actually like to game. I think it is
rather interesting and a place that is so different from the real world. So
yeah, I threw myself down there, but I had fun doing it. I have fun and enjoy
being able to tell people what I feel like saying, and how it affects me. I
especially love writing argumentative essays as well, because they allow you to
talk a lot. You can voice your own call to action in an argumentative essay.
This semester I did gun control as my topic, since it sits so close to my
family. Last semester I did birth control because it sits so close to me, just
like gun control. Any proposal essay that I can make my own and talk about, even
if I have to do extensive research and all of that, still feels like mine. I
feel like being able to think out loud is what makes an essay sometimes better,
and this definitely helped me evolve.
I have also learned to read better.
I’m a leisure reader, I like to read books that I enjoy and that I want to
read. I don’t feel like when I have to read something that I enjoy it too much,
and I definitely don’t dig deeper than I am supposed to. In this class, however, we were told to read
and annotate our articles, to help us think better and to explore the different
options that are given. This is one path that can help you be a better reader.
Also doing an annotated bibliography for our literature review helped out as
well. Doing the bibliography we actually have to read though the entire
article, instead of just skimming through, and looking for details that we can
use in our own paper. I have definitely turned into a deeper reader, and I
don’t mind reading articles for school, as long as they’re short articles
however.
Writing was never a serious issue. I
was good in spelling, good in grammar, and loved writing, but writing essays
was not really the one thing I enjoyed. Essays are never really enjoyable, but
they’re a part of school you just have to live with and enjoy somehow. All of
these essays that I have written in this course have helped me. They have led
me down a different path and taught me different steps to try and be a better
writer. I was able to write a better essay that I was a few months ago. Kaizena
and Google Docs also helped because an instructor is allowed to go in a give
you advice to fix or change something so that you can edit and write a better
paper than the one before. All of these essays we did were hard, but at the
same time they gave a new prospect and wider view of aspects that we could use
to make a better paper. All of my essay papers have definitely stepped up in
details and better sentence structure. I actually enjoyed writing my essays
this year unlike when I haven’t enjoyed them. I also try to pick a topic for
essays that I enjoy, gun control was this years, and that makes the essays more
entertaining to read and write as well.
The papers this year were definitely better.
I think highly of myself as a
reader, thinker, and writer. I really enjoyed this year, especially since I was
able to enjoy myself and not have to worry. English has always been a better
subject for me anyway. I love being able to read, write, and think, there is
nothing wrong with that at all. Reflecting back on myself, I feel like I have
done loads better than what I have done before, and am definitely proud of who
I have become as a reader, thinker and writer. I can’t wait for next year since
I had such a good year this year. I hope it will be as great as my first year
in college, and the years to come will be just as easy and fun as this year.
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