AVID 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.

Reading and writing is a fundamental part of our learning experience. Reading allows you to enter worlds and experience things you wouldn’t be able to experience anywhere else and writing expands your knowledge not only on a specific topic but you learn more about yourself, you’ll be surprised how far your imagination can take you as soon as your pen hits the paper.

I’m a highly academically driven student and have several, quite lofty, goals for my time here at Texas A&M. I want to maintain a 4.0 GPA, or at least a minimum of a 3.5 in order to maintain my Cornerstone Honors status. My dream, and biggest goal, is to intern for a congressperson in Washington, D.C., and I also want to study abroad, hopefully in England.

There is much beauty in communication. This semester, we have been able to use language to discuss and question such abstract, prevalent concepts that united a group of students with different experiences, backgrounds and stories. The open dialogue that was implemented in the classroom allowed us to all feel comfortable sharing our most vulnerable thoughts and memories, and this level of comfortability is hard to establish. The women that you invited to speak: Kristen, Naomi and Jae, all blended perfectly into our space. Additionally, the topics these women brought to the floor correlate to our readings in Stimpson’s Critical Terms for the Study of Gender, allowing us to expand on the literature and make real life connections to the texts. Therefore, Kristen, Naomi and Jae all stem from different backgrounds and specializations, yet have overcome many of the hardships that many of us are currently struggling with, making their messages both engaging and applicable.

We all grow up differently, with a different background and story that follows but, it’s not likely reading and writing are a factor to who we are. When I was two years old, I was consistently having surgeries on my right hand because of my hand disorder called syndactyly. I was used to having help consistently, never honestly did the work for myself but, as time progressed into the fifth grade the reality of school hit me hard. I had a cast on my arm from surgery and was dreadfully struggling to keep up in any of my classes. I failed math that same year and, was clinging to social studies an English by a thread. I was surrounded around intelligent role models yet, I was struggling and didn't take school serious enough. That summer was my final summer before entering into middle school which meant I had to do a summer assignment called “Summer Reading”. Two books, two pages of summaries, for both journal logs, and much more, I wasn't hopeful that I could do it by myself. had much pride that somebody wowed do it for me.

When I was a child, my mother enrolled me in weekly piano lessons. These classes were not relaxing; in fact, it was like school. There were weekly music theory quizzes and at the end of the year, I had to have songs memorized to play in front of a judge who would authorize my completion of the grade level. That annual experience was torture for me because I had horrible stage fright just to play in front of one kind elderly individual. To say I detested the classes was quite the understatement. My brothers adjusted easily and enjoyed learning a new craft. I, however, had complaints going to class, leaving class, and throughout the week. I had no passion for the music, but I had no choice but to force myself to learn. The semester before beginning college, I graduated from the piano program. Years of surface level learning and not really absorbing piano material had finally come to an end. I knew in my heart I would never touch a piano willingly ever again.

I have always had a strong faith in my religion, and have never had any shame in expressing it. I never really questioned or challenged it until August 23, 2015. That Sunday was a day that changed my family’s life for what seemed to be forever, since we had to wait until September 9,2016 to get back to somewhat the same. We had to wait a whole year to get the answers that would slowly piece back my family. The day had started out rather normal my family and I had just eaten our Sunday dinner and were all just laying around relaxing for a bit. Well, my mom and dad were in their room laying down watching television, when all of a sudden I heard my mom yell “ Chris, Chris, come on talk to me”. I ran into their room since I had heard the sense of fear in my moms voice. As I got through the doorways I looked over and seen my dad seizing in his bed. My heart instantly dropped, my mind instantly went blank in a sense of shock. My mom instantly had me help her get my dad up and turned over on his side so he wouldn’t choke on his tongue.

Ever since I was born, I was raised in a Vietnamese household where my parents and grandparents always communicated to me in only Vietnamese. Before I was four years old, I slowly learned English from watching television and listening American radio stations. In my elementary school, I learned the American alphabet by memorization and repetition of the sounds and signs of the American alphabet. Then teachers started to make students learn new vocabulary and helping students make flashcards with pictures for visual aid. To improve my communication skills in English, my teachers often made the students work in groups, so students can learn from each other and practice their speaking. English is all about memorization and then applying what I learned to other situations. During the summer, I went to extra English classes, and my summer school teachers emphasized the importance of vocabulary and grammar. I learned how to diagram sentences based on their parts of speech and memorized how certain phrases must correspond to a set of rule to satisfy the English grammar. My teachers in high school tested my English skills through public speeches and numerous essays. During high school, I also went to Vietnamese school for four years every Sunday where they emphasized the importance of memorization and repetition. My teachers gave me homework to read, and I had memorize certain poems or short stories. They would test me by making me recite the poem or write down the short stories by

In the overwhelming transition from middle school to high school, I had a group of friends at the time who seemed to have a positive impact on me. My group of friends consisted of eight girls, but shortly changing to five girls as freshman year approached. My desire was to have a tight group of friends I could trust during my high school experience. The summer going into freshman year was smooth, no issues I had seemed to notice. My friends were the type of people I always wanted to be around, but I was oblivious to the fact my character was slowly changing. Winding down towards my the end of summer, along with freshman year approaching, things started to seem different. It started by excluding friends from our group that we had been friends with forever, and there was not a reason for this. As the friends of mine, who were being excluded started to notice the distance we created from them, I let myself be persuaded into doing what I know wasn’t the right thing, I was hurting them. I started to constantly feel guilty about completely cutting them off for no reason. After about three girls were kicked out of our group, I started to hear in great detail, a tremendous amount of gossip going on about one another. When these types of situations would occur I tried convincing myself that they weren’t doing anything wrong, that talking behind their backs was not a bad thing. It would play back and forth in my mind with me thinking, do I listen to the inside voice that’s saying

I chose assessment #10: Authenticity Scale (Biswas-Diener, 2010, p. 122) for my assessment. Between this current quarter and the last, I pushed myself beyond limits on another section of the Appalachian Trail. On the morning of day number 3 out of 6, I snapped a selfie of myself as I crested a ridge line on a bald (treeless ridge line with unlimited views). The photo was unique and looked manipulated with a filter due to the glare from the sunrise burning through thin patches of fog spilling over the ridge as if the mountain was an airfoil. That photo is now my Facebook profile picture and titled, “Nothing artificial.” I have always pushed myself to be true and authentic in all I do. That does not mean being perfect, it means being honest with myself.

Some of the values listed in class that are a part of my value system include developing the ability to give and receive affection, finding satisfaction in one’s work, having a sense of identity and feelings of self-worth, and being open, honest, and genuine. One value that I do not possess is developing effective strategies for coping with stress (Corey & Corey, 2011). I seldom let myself feel stressed, so I wonder if I become very stressed in the work field, how will I handle it? A value I do not adhere to well is the ability to receive affection. This is because it is something I am still working on. I am good at receiving affection, but when it comes to some people, I struggle to receive affection from. I wonder what steps I can take to increase my ability to receive affection. Again, in my psychology course, I have learned that our values can often be influenced by our parents (Dutka, 2016). I would say that is true for me as many of my values line up with my mom’s. She is also values empathy, compassion, and helping other people.

I saw many people coming in from the doors to watch us perform. I didn’t realize there was going to be so many people in the audience and I started to become nervous, but also really excited as we got to show off all of our hard work. My conductor walked out onto the stage to welcome everyone, thanked them all for coming and to enjoy the show. He walked back towards us and told everyone to go get ready and warm up.

Following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, the IMF bailout provided desperately needed funds to revive South Korea’s economy but came with a caveat of strict mandates. The aftermath left sectors of its economy eviscerated, patches of its society dissolved and sent my family on a plane to the United States. What could have been a typical American dream narrative, however, not only molded my character but also evolved into a lifelong aspiration in global affairs.

Watching others suffer, and get hurt by those close to them is a very traumatizing experience. All over the country many children are suffering in different ways, which will affect them in the long run. It’s actions such as these that have swayed me, in order to help and save many in my community. As I progress in life I wish to help those in need, in order to give them a better environment to live in. This essay is being written so my history, current situation, and future shall be known to the person reading this.