Personal Narrative : My Learning Journey Essay

I have been involve in different leadership roles during my professional and personal experience but after attending this course of practicing leadership and public health course, I have enhanced my skills in various perspective which would be helpful for my personal and professional growth. The content of the course provided me the opportunity to explore more about my personal and professional strengths and weakness with the perspective of leadership. I have realized the importance of the strong leadership in all aspects of the life when I had written my biopic for this course required by the facilitators. It was great experience to reflect on my own achievements and accomplishment by interlinking with new learned skills and education.

I was ten, the most terrifying event I had been through was riding the little dragon roller coaster at the fair, but that night changed it all. The fear that started in my head spread like wildfire to the rest of my body from the tips of my fingers to the bottoms of my toes. My heart was racing so fast that it could have beat Usain Bolt in a 100m dash. Stop, drop and roll, three steps that should have come naturally, but instead I froze, looked down at my yellow and black checkered flannel in complete terror, fearing for my life.

It hurts. My bright red bruises under the light were buzzing from the pain. The yelling and arguing were muffled by my loud sobs. Why did this have to happen to me? I was just a kid, I didn’t do anything! Stomp stomp stomp. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He found me and yelled into my ears even more. I was called ugly, fat, disgusting, useless, girly, weak. The words ringed in my ears as I asked myself once again, why? I was like a slave, I couldn’t defend myself, I had to survive the beatings. I succumbed to the insults and descended into chaos.

Throughout my educational experience I noticed the discrepancies with regard to the advantages my peers possessed. In high school as I began exploring what career I wished to pursue, I experienced inferiority as my classmates who’ve taken the ACT three times, visited college campuses, and have had resumes ready since the 6th grade unintentionally mocked my lack of college-readiness. However, my ignorance wasn’t intentional, my parents never reached a high school education in Mexico, they couldn’t pass down SAT tips or acquire internship opportunities for me. I realized it's vital to pick up the pace to avoid being left in the dust akin to countless others in my situation. Henceforth, this statement resonates with my experience, I interpreted

I had always assumed that my legs were strong and that I had decent muscle control, however, this thought was proven wrong at the beginning of my junior year in high school due to a detrimental injury. It was the first game of fall league for basketball, and within the first five minutes I had succumbed to an injury. Tearing my ACL and Meniscus has taught me to continue improving on my strength, not let this one injury keep me down, and to keep a positive mindset.

In this class, I have learned many new skills to improve my writing, and I have also learned new grammar rules. In regards to my writing, I have learned the importance of freewriting when beginning to write a paper. Additionally, I now know to allow ample time for revising and editing because I can look at my work critically for mistakes and make necessary changes. Furthermore, I have learned about grammar rules such as pronoun-antecedent agreement. This rule is something that I know subconsciously, but being made aware of it has allowed me to find mistakes I make more often.

In the previous years, I have made the decision to work concurrently with my education. I have been working as a waitress in a local restaurant for years. My parents were opposed to my working since they wanted me to focus on my grades, but I wanted to lessen the financial burden for them. Both of my parents never received an education and they wanted me to solely focus on school to secure myself a better future despite our poverty.

The knowledge that imparted to me by this course made me understand the changes in health care system. It gave me the positive attitude on the evolution and reforms are coming from. Although it still be a long process of making the health care improve because of the cost, access and quality, I could share my opinions having this knowledge and skills to my patients, patient’s family members and colleagues.

The artifact I created demonstrates my progression as a student in the Step 1 course. The tree on the left has nothing to show under its leaves and symbolizes me prior to this course. I had little knowledge on the approaches to teaching when I first walked into class the first day, but over the course I have learned and developed a great deal. I am now the tree on the right and if you lift the leaves you will find images of a megaphone, a questionmark, a stopwatch, and raised hands. These images symbolize just a few of the numerous accomplishments and skills I now have to show.

When I first think of education making an impact on my life, my immediately goes to the teacher that inspired me to pursue the field of education: Mr. Quesenberry. The truth is, I never expected to enjoy his 8th grade Civics class. Though I had many wonderful social studies teachers before 8th grade, each year history was always one of my least favorite subjects, and I expected Civics to be the same. Before I took his class, I thought that the government was just a bunch of old rich guys who made laws and ran the country, and I didn’t have the slightest idea about the many complicated issues that the United States was facing or about what I could do to get involved and fight for my values.

So now here I am. The Tribe was able to fund me in continuing my education, and I’m finally able to attend college. I never thought that I would make it to college. I was always beating myself up for having a GED and giving up in School. My first day of college in January, was filled with anxiety. I thought I was going to faint. But I survived. I now I’m enjoying the college life. Although it’s not much of a fabulous life. It’s challenging, stressful, intimidating, intense, but also fun. I want to encourage my children to never give up. I also want to remind them about how important school is just like my grandpa did. That getting an education is important. That without one they would struggle like I had. And reflecting back to when I was a

If I could say who I am as a learner, I would say that I am a risk-taker, and am very knowledgeable. I like this because I am not afraid to try new things, but I still know what I am doing. If you don’t be a risk taker and try new things, you can never learn anything. These are two very good traits to have, but I still have goals. I want to be more reflective and look back on my mistakes so I can learn better. My goals for behavior are to talk less and get more work done. The best way for me to work is to get a lot done and then take a lot of little breaks, sometimes I get carried away and start to talk and it gets crazy. I learned about this trait when I was a lot younger when I would clean my room. I would get distracted and start playing around, and then I would stop and clean really fast so I could take a little break again. I think this is a result of what type of learner I am. My color quiz results said I am yellow. That means I am very enthusiastic and try to change things where I can. I like to change things to make them more fun. So when I work, I take

Public school systems need to be more sensitive to their students. Parents play the major role in determining a child’s academic outcome, but the school system needs to notice children who don’t necessarily acknowledge their gift. These children need guidance -- I believe it is the schools’ responsibility to provide it to them. I have been through a situation that makes me feel strongly about the subject. My example is an indisputable case in point.

This semester is going good so far, but it could be better. I am getting better with completing all my assignments on time which was sort of a hassle for me last semester due to procrastination. I feel that I am managing the overload better than last semester which is great because I am taking more and harder classes. It does get overwhelming at times, but it's nothing I can't overcome or handle. I am managing the materials in my class good and I am able to understand it as well. I'm taking more classes that have lectures, so I am also able to pay attention in class and not day dream which was something I used to do. There are times where I won't understand some material, so I would either ask questions or go to tutoring outside of class, which

Because of my giving nature, I tend to put others before myself to assist whenever I can. My affinity for helping others has been strengthened through my family responsibilities and mentorship to fellow students. Throughout my life, my grandmother has been my caregiver, my mother. By the time I entered high school, however, our roles had reversed, and I had become my grandmother’s caregiver. As a caregiver, I prepare her meals, drive her to grocery stores and doctor’s appointments, assist her with medication, and assist with personal hygiene. By assuming this role, I have developed strong emotional intelligence, empathy, and time management skills while balancing my academics and personal life. My grandmother was there for me as a child, and