Personal Reflection

I know how to listen, be persistent, trust worthy, and open minded. I also have had plenty of experiences that can help me to relate to other clients I may come in contact with. This will allow me to be more effective as a counselor. I have many goals as a young aspiring counselor. I think that the standards and goals I have for myself will allow me to uphold high standards for all my clients, which will show them that I believe in them. I have the personality, drive, and want to help people and this is why I chose the counseling profession. It will not always be easy, but it will always be rewarding knowing I did help someone, or at least tried to. It takes one person to make a positive impact and change someone’s life. I want to be that

I am equipped with the ability to thoroughly and effectively listen. It is not just about hearing what the client is saying. You have to also be able to listen to what the client is not saying. All too many times do we ask others “How are you today?” It takes someone with a sixth sense to truly feel if that person is saying what they mean. I definitely feel this and am able to empathize with my clients. I also feel that a counselor should have a way about themselves where they appear strong and flawless. They must be the one the client tries to emulate. They should not have problems and issues that can clearly be seen from the

While I must admit I do not have a lot of experience interviewing clients in a traditional sense, I have done my fair share of pastoral counseling. I am finding through this class that I have more areas of weakness than I do strengths. I would not consider myself a counselor, and I very much doubt that I ever will. I consider myself a shepherd of a flock of people who can counsel, but know there are people who are exceedingly more gifted than I am, so I will usually refer difficult situations to more capable hands. I do not want to do more harm than good.

There are multiple personal qualities that I feel will allow me to become an effective counselor. Empathy and compassion are qualities that have always come naturally to me. Even if people are acting in a way that I disagree with, I try to use perspective taking skills to understand their motivations or reasons. In addition, I strive to stay open-minded and curious about the experiences of others rather than making judgements. This helps me to learn from others rather than remaining stuck in a rigid pattern of beliefs. I also try to go beyond simply taking the perspectives of others by looking for ways that I can help them move in their chosen direction. At this point in my career, most of the help I can provide comes in the form of listening

Honestly, I have had no formal training in counseling. In fact, because of an unproductive experience in a college psychology, I have not been looking forward to attending class. I was content with just using common sense, and personal experiences to assist parishioners in coping with specific situations affecting their lives. I knew God had prepared me for my job as pastor, but when I read Webb’s book, “Crisis Counseling in the Congregation”, I realized that this book would prove useful in facilitating me in becoming a better counselor. When I was assigned to Rivers Chapel as a pastor, I used strategies I had learned, in the classroom, and on my previous jobs in counseling, which were common sense and life experiences. But now, after

1. Empathy with students and the struggles they may experience in specific units of study and/or their transition to university study

Interning with Dr. Bunn and John Manor was a wonderful experience which I was able to learn an exponential amount of information. It also gave me a great opportunity to put my foot in the door by meeting professors that I potentially could be working alongside with at the Physical Therapy school. I was able to work with the Campbell athletes and test them on the 3D optical motion capturing system and it gave me the opportunity to develop new hands on and organizational skills I have yet learned in my undergraduate experience. John was able to teach me surface anatomy and dynamometry skills that I will not learn until graduate school, this puts me at a great advantage when I continue my education in Physical Therapy school. I also learned how to operate the motion capturing system which was extremely challenging, this worked to my advantage because now I now hold a skill that very few undergraduate students have obtained. Lastly, I was able to study about capturing, tracking, processing, and analyzing data. By applying what I learned in Research Methods, I turned the statistics I collected and transformed it into a poster presentation. In November, I was able to present it at Campbell University’s Academic Symposium and I also plan on presenting it at multiple events in the future.

Q1. There are a few different ways I learn and remember new things well: the first would be through physical or kinesthetic learning. Growing up I played a few different sports and loved being able to tangibly learn new skills and see the span of growth when I was able to push myself further athletically. Through those experiences I also learned how to collaborate and work with other people as a team, utilizing everyone’s strengths to accomplish goals. Another way I’ve been successful in learning has been through the combination of visual, aural, and verbal practice. In 2015 leading into 2016 I lived in Guatemala and spent much of my time trying to practice and learn Spanish. When I could hear, write, and visualize the effect of a word or phrase that helped me to retain and recall what I had learned.

“Contributes to team goals in and out of meetings” –I rate my performance in this area with a “1”. Although I complete all the assigned tasks on time, I still need to work on advancing the team’s progress by “articulating merits of alternative ideas or proposals.” When working with team, I often feel pressured to deliver my suggestions and ideas because I am afraid that mine is impractical and not substantial compared to others’. In addition, in most cases, my ideas overlap with another team member’s, which further discourages me from sharing mine. From now to the end of this semester, I strive to contribute more of my ideas to the group. I will overcome my fear of expressing my thoughts and new suggestions by actively participating in weekly group discussions. I usually speak once or twice during discussions, but I will aim for a higher frequency and quality in my input. For example, not only I will offer my solutions to the group, but also I will ask questions about and express my thoughts on others’ solutions. Regarding meeting the assignments’ deadlines and producing quality work, I perform very well in that area. However, I must improve in assisting other team members to complete their assignments with “similar level of excellence.” I will use GroupMe to communicate with my team members regarding their progress on the assignments. I may check up on them once in the middle of the week and once near the deadline to make sure that every team member stays on track.

I sat staring at the unending lines of code, all but giving up on the mess in front of me. The green ‘run’

Throughout my rigorous academic career, I have written numerous pieces of literature from research papers, poems, academic essays, and even tweets. In my rhetorical analysis, I will be analyzing a college essay in which I submitted to Bowling Green, Xavier, Toledo, and Ohio University. The reason I selected this piece to analyze is because this essay played a crucial role in determining where I would go to college, and it also describes me as a person, and my love for the city of Cleveland.

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.

Hello Grace, after reviewing the Young Professional Rubric and the Teaching Excellence Rubric then applying it to my own summer, I have come to the following conclusions.

This week, I meet with my study group two times this week and we did a study guide for everyone to study from. Also, this week I frequently study each day and went to the library to study. I am little bit nervous about this test, because the information is so much, and I am having problem concentrating on the major and key concepts, however, I will have realized and focused on my test. This week, I visited Sandy and she showed me few tips how to tackle nclex question. Also, this week I hired a private tutor to help prepared for the test. Furthermore, this weekend, I will not work and eradicate going out with my friend and family. My goal for this week is to achieve 94 or above on this test. I went online this week and did several Nclex questions on quiz let and did a lot of practice test.

One of the experiences that I had during my second week as an intern is that I had a homeless client who suffered from a mental health condition which I cannot disclose due to confidentiality. While I was doing her intake, I had to think back to some of the information that I learn from my previous courses in college on how to help someone in need who is suffering from any kind of mental health condition. The intake with the client went pretty well and I was very proud of the way how I handled a situation like that because I had my resources to think back to. I did get a little scared because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to take on challenge of working with someone who has mental health issues but the results came out very positive for me. After my second week of being an intern, things continued to run very smoothly for me. Even after I just started doing the intake and case management duties, I still had some times where I would forget things and remind myself what I needed to do correct it.