Personal Reflection

This reflection will discuss personal diffidence and how it has influenced my academic studies, including my practice within placement settings. Gibbs reflective cycle (Gibbs, 1998) has been utilised as it illustrates a clear structure for the process of reflection. To conclude this reflection will draw together the themes which have emerged and highlight a clear action for future learning that will be used in order to enhance my future practice.

When I first enrolled in the class, I didn’t know what was to be expected of me. I was scared the first time I logged onto the computer to see what the course entailed. Then, things changed and I was comfortable with my new lifestyle of doing work on the computer. I began by making myself a schedule with things that I wanted to accomplish each and every day. As I continued to do this and the end of the course started to become visible I started to grow more and more comfortable. I am happy with how everything has gone throughout this semester. I have learned a lot of things this year, as well as being refreshed with things that I obviously struggled with. This course developed me into a better writer; educated me on how to begin the

Over the course of the semester I have learned a great deal about the field of psychology and how to best use the resources provided for me at The University of Southern Mississippi. From the class lectures to the psychology small groups all of these things have prepared me for my journey as a psychology major.

Throughout this semester I’ve done my best to address these eight specific aspects of myself and how I can apply them to my life. Out of the eight, My two highest scores are Discovering Self-motivation and Adopting Lifelong Learning. Even in the beginning of the semester these two ranked in the top three. My lowest score on the second test was Gaining Self-awareness, which was also a low score on my first test. I definitely plan on assessing this principal and try to incorporate it into my thinking more. I also plan to continue to work at developing my emotional intelligence. Though in all reality, all of these principles are equally important to success.

Participating in the Sixth Year in Administration course work at Sacred Heart University has allowed me the opportunity to develop myself as a researcher and professional author through writing a thesis. This process took place over three classes with the final class running simultaneously with Internship II. The tertiary course involved conducting the specific research, analyzing the data collected, and writing the analysis and conclusion chapters of the thesis. Creating a useable survey was a more challenging process than I anticipated. With appreciation, I was granted permission to use a survey developed by Wertz, Carpenter, and Fewell as the foundation of my thesis. Items were added or deleted to meet the needs of the North Haven Community. To gain face validity, I reached out to professionals in other districts to review my survey and share suggestions to improve it with me. After the survey was disseminated, the responses trickled in. Upon receipt of responses from various staff members, I realized that I would need to convert some of the verbal answer choices to a numerical code prior to being able to analyze the data. Luckily using software such as an Excel spreadsheet this could be done without much complication.

This week, I had the pleasure of hearing Christine Healy from Exec Comm speak to my Sports Leadership and Ethics class. I did not know what to think going into her presentation due to being unable to access the Exec Comm videos we were required to watch. I was still able to watch some of the other recommended videos though and I loved the videos talking about the importance of body language and storytelling. The positive opinion I had on those videos led me to looking forward to what Mrs. Healy had in store for us.

My work ethic and my ability to fulfill my commitments shows how much of a dedicated and hard-working person I am, in terms of achieving my goals. Academically, I have been set on a course of facing on challenges to overcome. Since childhood, I have been placed in the Gifted and Talented program where my peers and I took advanced and honors courses, in which we would focus on rigorous and tough tasks; due to my effort, I was consistently one of the top students in my classes. However, when I entered Bronx Science, I realized that I would have to put even more effort in order to stay on top of all my classes and continue to do well. Sophomore had hit me hard, taking two AP classes, one honors, and one biology research class, but receiving relatively well grades by the end of both semesters had shown that I worked hard throughout all year in order to succeed and achieve my goals of being exceptional in my academic career. My extracurricular activities additionally demonstrate my determination, work ethic, and ability to fulfill commitments. Starting in June 2015, I worked as an intern at the Jackson Heights branch of Khan’s Tutorial, a medium-sized tutoring and mentorship academy. I initially planned to only intern for the summer, in which I would aid instructors, grade papers and homework, and do other simple administrative duties. However, I decided to continue interning past the summer because I was determined to continue working and I enjoyed the work environment at Khan’s

I am 18 year old female who lives on campus and am a first time college student with a full time course load. I do not have a job, but I am an athlete (I play golf). In Unit 1, for me, the most helpful topics we learn about were the learning styles and time management. The three learning styles are auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. I discovered that I was a visual and kinesthetic learner. I already knew I was a visual learner (someone who learns best from seeing things), but was unaware I was just as much of a kinesthetic learner. A kinesthetic learner is someone who learns best by doing instead of just listening or reading. Kinesthetic learners enjoy hands-on learning. After learning this new information, I started to make an extra effort to practice the material I was learning in class instead of just listening to the lecture and rereading my notes and the textbook. This was most beneficial in my chemistry class. I practiced completing equations over and over until I got the correct answer every time, which paid off in the end because I ended up not missing a single equation on the test. I use my visual side of learning by in psychology by picturing the information as real life scenarios and in speech by writing out and rewriting lines to help me memorize my speech. It is imperative that as a student beginning at IUSB, that you understand your learning style since studying with the wrong learning style would make it difficult to succeed. Once a student knows their style,

I felt like I lost my identity. My goals and my endeavors all started when I wanted to become an orientation leader for UWB in 2016. Having passed the written and group interview phase. I had a goal to leave no student feel like they were excluded, I was ecstatic that I was able to showcase my commitment to new incoming students while providing genuine care. The day of my individual interview struck me, I nervously walked in that day with an unfortunate outbreak of eczema. Embarrassed, I looked away while talking, pouring my heart into my words but not using my brain. A few days later I got a letter saying I didn’t get the job. My inexperience, shyness and lack of confidence were like shackles around my feet, reminding me of how powerless I was. After many failed attempts to get a job due to my lack of experience, the stability of my life started deteriorating. In the winter of 2016 my girlfriend cheated on me,only to cheat again after I had forgiven her. Close family members passed away and friends ended their lives too short. I didn’t have anyone to talk about my problems with, and my parents still expected me to be the perfect student. overwhelmed with pressure, grief, disappointment, and anger, I skipped classes thinking that there was no point, causing my grades to plummet, and my motivations and self-interest to slip away.

I am Samantha pressdee and I will self assess myself for this quarter. I will discuss my attendance, my grade,work ethic and my overall attitude in this class.

English Comp I has taught me a great deal and has also helped me improve on some writing skills that I never really payed attention too as I began my writing career in middle school. I have improved in a big way in several subjects that can impact a person’s writing in a dramatic way. Evidence from three of my EN113 papers this semester provide evidence that suggest that I have succeeded in improving on my organizational skills, identifying grammar issues, and elaborating and describing events in more detail. Reviewing my previous papers, I have realized that I am still working on improving my MLA format.

Growing up, I was never good at writing and struggled with it. In eighth grade, we had to write a paper on our superhero and I wrote about my mom. I saw everyone wrote two or three pages while I wrote one. I felt a bit weird about that and I knew it was not a good paper. Prior to sophomore year of high school, we had to read a book called Jane Eyre. I did not like reading and read only half the book and just looked up summaries online. I had Miss Figueroa for an English teacher that year, and I was so scared and nervous because she was a difficult teacher. We discussed the book, and then we wrote a rough draft essay about it. In October, we had to take a P.O.W. Exam on this book, which had three essay topics to choose from. I remember my rough draft was the same exact topic as the one on the exam, and I thought this is going to be easy. A few weeks later we got our results back, and it required a three to pass and I got lower than that. I made mistakes on grammar, my paragraphs were not consistent, and my introduction and thesis were not being well- written. This made me so sad because I could not graduate high school without passing this exam. We had to write in-class essay on novels we read and essays at home. I remember struggling to come up with topics to write about and forming ideas. It took me so long to finish these essays, and they were never well written. I was never good with timed essay tests as I felt like I was being rushed and had no time to check my work or

In the Organizational Behavior class (BMAL 500), I took a personality test online and found out that my personality type is Extravert- Sensing- Thinking- Judging (ESTJ), although I had a marginal preference of extraversion over introversion. Basically in certain situations I can be either an extravert or introvert. I like structure and am very organized. I tend to cope pretty well with the stressors of life and do not allow stress to bog me down. My supervisor would describe me as dependable.

“Know who you are, and be it. Know what you want, and go out and get it!”

I first came face to face with finance in a school project where I designed a Christmas product and sold it in the school stalls. I managed the budgeting and designed part of the product. Then I became even more engrossed into finance as I attended the investment Banker challenge where my group came second on the return on investment category by 0.01. I was the trader so I had to bid on commodities and shares, reacting quickly to real-time information, demonstrating my analytical and decision-making skills.