Personal Reflection

The personal reflection will outline the design knowledge gained throughout in DESN 600 on both personally and as a group. Therefore report will begins with definition of design and design thinking, elaborating the most insightful in the design process, their success or failure and how it leads to discoveries the insights, most problematic design method and self-reflection method being as design student.

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.

My summer has been amazing! I came home from GHP two days ago, where I had some of the best weeks of my life. We talked about it so much beforehand, I thought you might want to hear how it went. GHP is a learning environment like no place else. I had the opportunity to meet so many welcoming people (my hallmates, classmates, RA, and teachers) who were so similar to me in character, but also brought a wealth of different experiences. I learned so much academically, but mostly about myself while in Rome.

The writing I did this semester for Engl 110c has meant alot to me because I was able to pick a topic that has such a huge impact in my life. I was able to do the topic about Navy Wives, which has a huge impact on me. I recently became a navy wife a year ago and my life has changed drastically. I was able to share everything I wanted to about the life of a military wife through my writings, as well as share to my classmates about my topic. I really enjoyed creating my ePortfolio because I could come out of my shell and be me. I made a ePortfolio website that would be for military wives to read. I believe this website would be perfect for any military wife reading it. I was able to give tips and information on what it’s like to be a military wife, how to prepare for deployments and how to stay strong being a military wife.

My supervisor/ team leader gave me top rating of 10 except a 7 on academic knowledge. I agree with his ratings except I would lower the rating of academic knowledge to a 5. I started with fundraising for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and recently I started on Save the Children. When I received the rating of a 7, I had been on the start of my third week. I only had the basic knowledge of TNC and wasn’t fully confident to do on my own to overcome objections. After listening and practicing saying my pitching about the charity, I got more comfortable and was able to influence others because I had the education to back up with what people asked.

This week at the Jasper County Health Department, I had a variety of tasks. Due to session cancellations, the first couple hours I was at the clinic, I helped with filing patient files as well as working at the front desk to check in clients and schedule future appointments. I learned a large amount of interesting information just by looking at patients files. A lot of information goes into each file and I was surprised and lucky to have the chance to view these files and learn from them. Patients varied from DUI’s to mental illness. As I spent the first few hours of the day up front working with the women up there, I learned a lot about the billing systems. I had not planned to learn so much about how they charge and when they can charge and when they cannot. I learned the difference between insurance, Medicaid and self-pay. One of the secretaries informed me that they have a crisis counselor always on call. If a client calls in and is talking suicidal the on call counselor will get them help. From talking with her, I learned that in these kinds of cases, clients cannot be charged any fee. I was never aware of this for these situations.

With tears falling down my face, I reflected on what I had gone through for the past seven months. I was talking to a crowd of concerned parents and depressed kids that were looking for help. I started thinking about where I would be if I wasn't as strong as I know I am now. I was thirteen, the youngest out of three speakers at an anti- bullying conference at my church. We were telling our stories about bullying. It was my turn to speak, my heart started racing, and it felt like it would drop to the floor. Even with flashcards in my hand to keep me on track, I felt like I couldn't speak. My pastor, Angela Jones, saw how nervous I was and came to comfort me and help me to calm down. She told me to tell my story and tell my testimony, so I did.

Developing an awareness that there are layers of meaning to an idea/concept; openness to finding patterns and connections and exploring the multiple possibilities and interpretations.

In addition to all of the work that I described previously, I have also done enough to earn an A in this class. I am positive that my writing has improved since midterm, and I received an A for midterm. I have expanded more on my writing by actually explaining my thoughts and giving myself more time to read and process the articles. As I talked about the goals that I have for myself, I explained how I try to find the most accurate of information before making a decision. I related accuracy to how false information, such as a textbook “making it seem as though Native Americans did move for Western Europeans and colonizers,” which evokes the idea that “Native Americans can do it again” (November 5). Furthermore, I tend to restate ideas presented and then expand upon those ideas, thus creating another explanation or example for the information.

While reading Systems Thinking, The Systems View of Life and Learning as a Way of Leading, I felt as if I was experiencing many contradictory things at once. I felt as if i was in the past and the future, i was growing and shrinking, peering into a microscope and peering through a telescope all at the same time. I was taken on a journey through the micro and macro while weaving simultaneously through my own internal and external mental models of the world. This immersive reading experience sparked a strong desire in me to seek new perspectives and try to understand what others internal and external mental models look like, what they mean and what they feel like. The concepts and theories presented in the readings have helped me to solidify some of my own thought processes and ways of thinking about the world so I can put them into action and apply new practices into my community work and in turn create change. I do know one thing for sure, I want my contributions to be positive and go towards the common good. The readings reminded about how interconnected everything and everyone is and how fragile life can be. The readings have reinforced my desire to do good, be creative, think of others more than myself, but to not lose touch with self.

Life is an expedition. At times your success tangent is positive, and at times it goes down. But the aim should always be campaigning for your set milestones and keep on gauging your success. When it comes to me not me exactly everyone life is a protest and you have to be a rebel. The cloud of people is still dragging towards the so-called remarkable piece of paper and guess what is that a Degree. And don’t worry I was under the same umbrella. I was a daydreamer of seeking admissions into an XYZ for under-graduation in the engineering dominion. But alas I couldn’t sweat that much to get that much. But the seeds of XYZ were germinated in my mind. Life shows you the shades of black and white as an act of Mime. I was a part of a route that was contesting XYZ blindly without knowing the purpose of their lives. I never pondered over that a degree from any institute is not a patented orientation for the secure future.

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.

Throughout my senior project, I wanted to gain a better understanding of how our government works. I have taken American Government, but I wanted to get an even better understanding of our government through first-hand experience. That is why I decided to be a part of the City of Payette’s advising comprehensive plan committee. Throughout this committee, I, along with about 10 other people, discussed certain topics that will help further make Payette a better place to live in. Some of the topics of discussion included that of property rights, land use planning, transportation, economic development, and more. The purpose of being a part of the committee was to help me get a better understanding of how a local government works. I also wanted to find out the careers that are related with any facet of government.

An idea that makes me excited about learning is vulnerability. We experience fear and shame, when we don’t have a sense of belonging. However, this helps us learn from our experiences, change, and develop as stronger people. It is not others who put us down, but rather ourselves by constantly thinking we’re not fit to complete a certain task. I remember that after I got kicked out of my house due to family strife and started living with roomers, I felt embarrassed. Questions constantly hoovered my mind. What would happen if my friends wanted to come over? What kind of household must they think that I grew up in as my own family members to betrayed me? Would they even think that I am even of their standard? From this point onward, this made me think about how the human brain works in general. Why do we care about what others think of us? Why are we wired to want to feel accepted? What causes us to cry or smile? How are our emotions processed? How are other individual's actions and words so powerful that they bring forth an immediate reaction on our side? Biology teaches us about complex human body functions, how life came to be beginning from the origins and evolved over these years through multiple stages of growth, and how organisms function and interact with each other. That's why I want to major in biology, it allows me to gain the answers to all my questions.

Participating in local, county, and even state and national government is an essential part of seeing your vision put into action; Legislation can be seen as that one last step before enacting change. As I can attest, from witnessing it for myself at this week's town hall meeting in Fort Bragg, brilliant individuals such as George Reinhardt and Doctor Thais Mazur can devote so much of their life to a cause, for it just to come down to a “yes” or “no” vote in the end. For our semester project in civics, each of the students were tasked with objective of learning what we can really be doing in society to see even our change realized. Attending this local town hall meeting, and participating in our discussions in civics class, has allowed me to start participating in some of the civic responsibilities I will have as an adult and an American citizen. By the end of my senior year of highschool, which is comming up a little sooner than I expected, I will be thrust out into society, and I think I have learned enough to get me a good start on my role of citizenship. In this paper I will be writing of my experiences in attending my first town hall meeting, and to what I have taken away from that day relating to how I belive society works.