Personal Reflection

self-reflect on who I am as a person as well as opening me up to more career goals that match my

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.

Heading into the first semester of college, many students do not know what passion of theirs they want to pursue for the rest of their lives, let alone the steps to achieve a realistic way to follow it and ideally make a living doing so. However, when I began my first year at Minot State University, I knew I wanted to continue my journey in English, although, I did not know whether I wanted to lean towards education or, in a perfect world, become the editor of a newspaper. Coincidentally, my Honors’ Community class’ final project required choosing something to learn about, and simply, learning about it. Since I had already known about English education, being that I had been taught by them for more than a decade of my life, I chose to learn about the ins and outs of “Becoming an Editor.” Doing so, I not only learned more about being the editor of a newspaper, but I also related more to the Honors’ experience at MSU, reinforced my passions, and clarified my future.

I began my journey at CCRI in the Fall of 2015 after realizing that my life was not progressing in a direction I was comfortable with. I had previously attended three semesters at another community college in my early 20's but did not complete the program due to unexpectedly starting a family (whoops!) and dropping out of school. I had no support network and no money, so I did the only thing that made sense... I got a job. Over the years I worked menial jobs for greedy bozos, eventually acquiring a trade and securing steady reliable income. At first, I felt accomplished to have ascended the ranks and provided for my family, but as time progressed it became apparent that, unless I made a change, I had little room left for career growth.

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

Ms. Kim Ferguson Tannor came to talk to the class about her passion for her job as an Physician’s Assistant. It was interesting how she structured her presentation by talking about how to merge your passion and your purpose. Which is what we are slowly pursuing this semester. Ms. Tannor is a 42-year-old second generation American who grew up in Long Island, New York. In 1994, she went to Virginia State and graduated with a degree in Biology. Then she returned and graduated with a Master’s degree in Biology with a concentration in Biochemistry. I actually never knew that you could have a specific focus for Biology in graduate school. I thought the specializing came in medical school for Biology majors. She had the career goal of being a doctor at first. One of the first lessons she gave the class is how important accountability is. She had gotten caught up in the freedom that college offers and she wasn’t being a good student. She had been put on academic probation by the end of her first semester in college. But what was motivating to me is that she acknowledged that she did something wrong and got right back to work. I have admitted when I’ve messed up but usually I feel bad for myself for a period and I don’t get right to work. If she can mess up and bounce back, so can I. She also stressed that you may be letting someone else down who is looking up at you and you can’t do that. This is very true for me, I have two younger sisters and plenty of younger cousins who I know

Mr. Gibson came in to speak with us today. He told us how he goes about teaching his classes and formulates his lesson plans. I took down a lot of notes. I viewed Mr. Gibson as a strong, authoritative figure, with a bright sense of humor. He appears to be very aware of other people. He is a person who values learning something new every day. He loves that he gets paid to help people by using his belief system and he feels his teaching has clicked even more now that he is a parent. Mr. Gibson makes sure that the “Bellwether” Kids are always focusing in his class. Sometimes, students worry about their home. However, when they arrive at school Mr. Gibson gets them engaged in a lesson. They put all of their home worries in a “Sub-Basement”. While in class they should only worry about themselves and their engagement in the lessons.

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 arrived at the Churchill County Library between 4:55 pm and 5:00 pm. My sister, who works there part-time, texted me at 4:36 pm telling me to bring my dog to the Library, as she had put her two weeks in and her coworkers wanted to see the dog before she was gone. I have brought my dog to the Library on three (3) or four (4) separate occasions for this same purpose: a simple visit. I left my house at 4:45 pm. I can not definitively say how long the visit lasted. Factoring in the 10min drive to and from my home to the library, my best guess is approximately 35mins, as I arrived home at 5:45 pm.

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.

I am a good writer but I aspire to be a great writer. Words have power and communicating a clear message to my audience is probably the most important ingredient. Every writer inherently knows there is always room to improve, there’s always a more effective way to say the same thing, and always a better use of grammar. Reflecting on my English 102 midterm progress, I recognize my use of rhetorical devices needs to be better employed to project a more effective argument. I recognize my growing vocabulary still needs more growth, but I don’t think it’s critical to reach most audiences. My confidence in developing and expressing a clear message has grown exponentially since English 101. I still find it useful to develop an outline before any writing project just to keep me organized and focused. The initial Diagnostic Essay and Editorial Analysis exploratory assignments provided the opportunity to conduct editorial reviews on other journalists’ works. I am now better equipped to conduct editorial reviews and revisions of my own writing at a semi-professional level.

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.

The first paper assigned to the class was a summary and response essay. The assignment called for my personal opinion on the text in reference to wether or not I agreed with the author. When writing this essay I laid out the assignment expectations in my own words and attempted to evaluate the prompt in a matter that I better understood. I recall drawing up a number of possible introductions to help decide whether agreeing or disagreeing would result in a better written essay, despite not particularly enjoying the piece, I decided that agreeing would be best. Once I decided that, I wrote out my topic sentences and moved from there. After those two steps were complete. my pharmaceutical company rejected my prescription refill due to an error on their part, as a result of this, I was unable to safely continue work and school. I threw the rest of the essay together with little attention to detail in an attempt to turn it in as quickly as possible. I did not receive feedback. After the issue was resolved I attempted to explain the scenario to you, doctors note in hand, but you told me there was nothing you could do. On account of this issue, I cannot say that I learned much from the assignment itself.

I found this exercise very helpful, reading the scores form each of the sections has given me a lot of insight into what I am good at, and what I can improve on in my field. I scored high in the adapting practice and in linguistics competence and health and health care disparities. To me, this shows me that I am good at communicating effectively in terms of making sure clients understand what options they have and how we can help them find the best decision which will benefit them the most. The results indicated that “Items contained in this…adapting such care to individual patients in the practice environment.” (National Center for Cultural Competence, 2). I have just recently experienced something similar to this, and I can see that even though I am at an internship, I can still see myself taking these things into my everyday life.

For each of us, there comes a time when we can look back and pinpoint the exact day that altered the course of our life, for me, one of those days was April 13, 2010. I was 14 years old when I fell off my bike and broke my elbow. After consulting multiple orthopedics, I was told I would never regain my range of motion, but with the help of a certified hand therapist, I was able to regain full range of motion and prove the doctors wrong. Months later I had surgery to reconstruct my elbow that had not healed properly, but again I was able to regain full range of motion thanks to my therapist. While the doctors were able to fix my arm, it was the therapists who were able to give me my quality of life back. It was at this moment that I knew I wanted to be a therapist. During my freshman year of college, I began to develop an ulnar claw which eventually led me to undergo ulnar nerve transposition surgery. After spending countless hours with a certified hand therapist I knew this was what I wanted to spend my life doing. I had been going to school with plans of applying to physical therapy school, but the experience I had recovering from ulnar nerve transposition led me to alter my course of study and transfer schools. Today no one would ever know that I had something wrong with my arm or hand other than the scars which motivate me and remind me of the impact an occupational therapist had on my life, and my ultimate goal; become an occupational therapist.