Personal Experience As A Student

In the essay "The Plight of Young Males" written by Saul Kaplan, the author has discussed that while the male gender’s evolution has come to a near standstill, there has been significant development on the female side of education in recent years. I agree with the author in every point that he has discussed in his article. Kaplan has mentioned in his article that the male’s future is not very bright, as with the contemporary type of schooling system, it has been made for admission not for success, which is not the best for students.

Think back to the time before you read this chapter, how successful were you at managing your time? What did you read in this chapter that lead you to answer the way that you did?

“Today is finally the day,” I thought with butterflies in my stomach as I hopped into my car and trekked forty miles to The University of Massachusetts Boston. Everyone’s first day as a college student is daunting and the nerves were definitely high that day. I was no longer attending a high school of a little over five hundred students, but rather a university with a total undergraduate enrollment of over twenty-two thousand students. This day was the start of a new chapter in my life and the University introduced entirely new opportunities for me to explore. Since the first day here, I have been submersed in a culturally diverse community that has challenged and allowed me to gain a new perspective of this world. The University of Massachusetts Boston is more than a school that I attend to gain a degree; it is a place where I continually learn and grow. I quickly fell in love with UMass Boston and only a few weeks into attending, found myself referring to it as my school. During my first year I was able to meet new people through my freshman success community and eventually form new friendships. Everything seemed to fall into place and my worries disappeared, but more personal challenge arose as the year continued on.

Today I had attended my first class of the Summer 2017 semester. I enrolled into the course EDUC 252 for multiple reasons. One reason for taking this course was that it is a requirement for the Bachelor of General Studies (BGS), an undergraduate degree program at Simon Fraser University (SFU), and this course fit perfectly into my busy schedule this current semester. Another reason for my enrolment into the course EDUC 252 was my pursuit of becoming a teacher. I believe this course will help me as a prospective educator with providing me with various opportunities to develop myself as a reflective practitioner. I have been interested in becoming a teacher for as long as I can remember. Unlike many other children who often had a list of aspirations when growing up, I was adamant on the fact that I wanted to become a teacher and would always announce “when I grow up, I want to be a teacher.” I believe this is a result of the positive impact that my former teachers had on my educational experiences. These teachers played a significant role in my life, helping me to build and accomplish my educational goals. Some of these teachers, I still keep in contact with. For example, over the last few months, I have been shadowing and volunteering in my former Kindergarten and Grade 6 and 7 teachers’ current classrooms.

My first year as a Higher Education Student in NUC had different experiences. I would describe some as exciting and life giving. Similarly, other experiences were challenging and disappointing. It was difficult to adapt in a new academic environment. I found it tough but life was not devoid of fun too. Meeting friends with different personalities made it possible for me to face academic life at NUC.

August 2009, in the dead heat of summer I awoke with excitement for the day to come. Shooting up out of my bed to look at my clock. It reads six o’clock in the morning. Going down my checklist in my head I start getting ready for the day. Today is the first day of band camp. Two weeks of sweating your ass off in the blazing Florida sun and enjoying every minute of it.

I walk into the house close to around eight- thirty pm, it’s pitch black inside my house.  Still standing in front of the doorway, I call out to see if anyone's home. A glowing orange light appears bouncing off the hallway walls and barely brightening up my field of view. It was my mother, she was crying; I asked her why she had a candle in her hand and she had told me that the power, electric, water, and gas had all been shut off. This had been the fourth time in three months.

In my senior year of highschool I was pretty productive. When I say productive I mean academically, financially, and even socially. I was a student teacher for a 7th grade Science class, a crew member at chipotle, and I played varsity basketball for my highschool team. So, my schedule was really jampacked. It was really challenging towards the beginning of the year because not only did I have those jobs and extracurricular activities but, I have a 5 year old demon of a brother that I also had babysit. Applying to college wasn’t easy at all because I had no support system. By no support system I mean my parents had no idea how the process was to be done so, I got no help from no one when it came to applications or even fafsa deadlines. These couple of months were the most stressful in my entire life not only did I have to worry about my daily life and current classes but, I had to make an effort in placing myself at a good college. My grades actually weren’t negatively affected by this lifestyle which really surprised me to be honest. I took advantage of weekends to hang out with friends and family and have fun but, when it came to the weekdays I was fully booked. I would get home really late from working on the line at chipotle so, my sleeping schedule was not good at all. This made me come to class late and start slacking in some classes that I didn’t as much as my core classes. This was how my first semester of highschool went.

When I started the 2015 Fall semester things were going swell I was very excited to start college and to start learning.I was very much more interested in figuring out what would be the best major for me to select.Going to college was something I wanted to do because I felt like it was the best option for me to find a career and a job I would love doing.While attending classes my mom started dealing with injuries and started experiencing pain with her right knee.I soon learned that bad knees, runs in my family and she has been dealing with it for some time now.Going to school during that time wasn't hard due to the fact she was still working and able to walk around by herself.But as soon as the semester was over I started to consider going to school. I wondered if school was for me at one point and time. So I talked to my old high school guidance counselor and talked about how I need to buckle up and get on track to success.Knowing that school is very important I decided to focus completely on school and nothing else.

Being a college student who is taking 18 credits this semester as well as working 15 hours a week, I experience multiple stressors every week that I try my best to deal with. Two stressors I have dealt with the past two weeks are struggling to manage my time and arguing with my boyfriend.

All throughout the summer of 2016, I had spent my time volunteering at the Chinese Christian Mission kid’s summer camp. After my summer vacation ended, I found myself really appreciating the accompaniment of children and wanting to continue my involvement with them. I seeked out for more opportunities to work with children and discovered an afterschool homework club through a friend's facebook post. After reading up on their website, I was interested in helping elementary school students develop essential math and literacy skills. It was my objective to enhance their self-esteem through improvement in academic skills and ignite a passion for learning in a safe and caring environment. Starting out first as a tutor, then becoming coordinator, I have volunteered with Learning Buddies Network for more than a year now.

Going into English 111 in August, I had no idea what to expect. This was my first experience of college classes, and walking into the classroom on the first Tuesday of the semester, all I knew was it was going to be different. As the class period went on, however, we were introduced to Moodle and then the seven student learning outcomes. These made the goals of the class clearer to me.

The semester has been able to turn on a more positive outlook, I feel every semester that you are going to have of college, a part of you always matures. Think of yourself being a plant or a tree that only grows and grows—your branches, leaves, roots, so much rooting indeed.

This year started atrociously and I was asceticism to the fact that my job was keeping me from doing my finest in school. I look back at it not with disappointment but with the recognition that I can’t multi-task two major time-consuming activities. I was working 5-9pm, 6 days a week was physically and mentally exhausting I would always come to school tired. I would be tardy and or late every day in my 1st hour. At one point I was failing four classes. I would come home from work and be up until like 3 am. I was trying my best to keep up on like the essays but my ADHD made everything so hard. But it was so much I would end up stressing out. Semester one was just rough in general. I went to parent-teacher conferences and it opened my eyes but not enough for change. But by the end of conferences, my mom was crying because she wanted to know what was wrong. I wanted to tell her but I couldn’t. I’d rather self-destruct myself than have everyone worried about me. Then I was to a point when I just didn’t care what anyone else thought I just wanted to make money and blow it on materialistic things like clothes and shoes and things of those sorts. I was at a point where I literally let money control who I was and how I acted as a person. Finally came the day of the essay I really did try like my problem was I had all the information but didn’t know how to put it on paper and I also struggled with focusing on writing the paper because the number of pages overwhelmed me and then

1. What was your experience as a student teacher? Did you find yourself getting attached to the children in the classroom? Were you skeptical in the beginning? As a student teacher, what was the most efficient advice you received from the former teacher? What was your biggest dilemma in student teaching?