Personal Reflection

The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don't feel obligated to do so. (The application won't accept a response shorter than 250 words.)

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 arrived at the agency, the room was crowded and many people were waiting for their turned to be served at one of the several tables. The person that I interviewed for this assignment was Emily Hampshire, the coordinator of one of a program called 180. Emily has been with the agency for over a year and is currently the coordinator of the agency’s newest program. This program is a gang prevention and intervention program and was created for the local at-risk youth in an effort to prevent gang related crimes and help youth “change their life around”, as Emily mentioned. This program was created in collaboration with the local Police Department and the Mount Diablo Unified School District and in

I believe the persuasive essay is the most difficult one to write compared to the narrative and process essay because it is very difficult to focus on one belief and change people´s opinions regarding certain events. In addition, it is very difficult to prove the facts, compile the data, and prove what it has been said, especially when it is not empirical data. I found it difficult writing to convince others towards my beliefs. I addressed this difficulties by using the learning skills in this class; such as, brainstorming about the topic, making an outline, use evidence clear and precise, and look for facts that support my ideas.

As time has passed by, I have learned many skills about writing argumentative essays. Some of the skills that I hadn't known before, include that ability to correctly order my arguments based on their order in my introduction, relating my arguments to my thesis at the end of each body paragraph, and using the correct evidence to support

Recollection of past experiences has proven to be one of the best teaching tools in existence. It is not just the reminiscing of the past that benefits us; it is the critical thinking that follows said reminiscing that is the most fruitful. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and much can be learned when reflecting on past situations. These observations, in turn, have the potential to guide our future decision making as well as our future actions. As I ponder the events and actions that have lead me up to this point, I have found that I have done much better at handling my workload and personal life simultaneously than I previously assumed I would. If all goes marvelous and I continue forward through this semester while maintaining my current work ethic, I postulate that I will finish this semester strong and continue to not only learn, but to fully integrate all of this fresh knowledge into my mind to be readily available for years to come.

This course enhances my understanding about bereavement’s theory and counselling skills working with bereaved people. Before I took this course, I thought bereavement only about death of a person. In fact, bereavement can also imply losses such as employment losses and leaving home. Also, changes can be a bereavement too as it is always come with gain and loss. Since one of the course aim is develop skills in counselling with bereaved people, I was nervous before attending to class because I don’t have anyone close to me is deceased. I was afraid that I am not able to work with bereaved people if I don’t have this experience. Now I know that bereavement is a type of loss and I have experience of loss. It facilitates the learning process because I can apply theory to myself and the cases we work on class. This course draws on theories from multiple aspect to discuss about bereavement, grief and mourning. Culture differences surely play a big role in those. As we learned about death in different culture, it is important to learn and respect all culture differences and understand and meet their needs. The film bereavement from a Muslim perspective, Muslim believe that the soul of a decreased person is still present around the person. Therefore, Muslim wants to stay with the decreased person so he/she doesn’t feel lonely. This behavior may not seem normal in other culture. Learning and listening to different culture differences such as emotion, role of mourners and belief system can avoid making assumption of our own culture to the bereaved people, otherwise misunderstandings can create a gap between the counsellor and the bereaved people and possibly lead to conflict too. Also, individual often carry different religion and spirituality. At first, I failed to see the significant of religion in counselling with bereaved people. As I am an atheist myself, learning other religions make me empathize other’s feeling. In class, we worked on a case about a grandmother believe her grandson is in hell. Some religions believe there is a heaven as well as a hell in afterlife. It was my first time to think about someone is in hell as I heard people talk about heaven for the most time. It was a very

Throughout the first semester of English 101A, I had struggled a lot because English is not my first language and it is not an essay class for me as a foreign student. And I did not have a strong basis on writing because I did not use to write a lot. I started learning English properly after I got in the U.S in 2013 from Ethiopia. Most of the time I focused on reading books that the teacher assigned to me and answering the questions. And sometimes we summarized a chapter from books. And starting English 101A as a freshman in college it was very hard to get familiar with the writing style because in high school we did not have specific writing rule like MLA formatting. And a high school writing was very different from college. As a result, I had to review MLA formatting and work cited when I started taking English 101A in college. I worked very hard in English 101 because it is an important course in order to succeed in my all college courses. Even though I have seen tremendous progress on the recursive writing process and writing a detailed essay with good examples during the last semester in English 101A, I have to continue to work on improving grammar and practicing timed writing.

Recently, my headmaster at my school has requested for me to recommend a good class to take, regarding

My reason for failing to meet satisfactory academic progress (SAP), or my lack of successful completion of credit hours attempted, is due to emotional hardship. During the Spring semester of 2017, I stopped showing up to classes entirely a little bit before midterms. I stopped going because of the state of my mental health. I am currently diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder, Major Depression, and Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.

The 2016 presidential election was a thought-provoking, exciting, and pivotal time in my life. The campaigning and debates leading up to the election inspired in me a sense of lasting political engagement; even the fact that I was 17 and could not actually vote in the election did not deter my enthusiasm. As exhilarating as those few months were, however, they also provided me with a rather tumultuous identity crisis. 2016 was a hotbed for political discourse in America, and while I was thriving on it, I was also facing contrasting influences from my peers and family on my political ideology. I was realizing that my stances on various issues fell on both sides of the aisle, and unfortunately there was no seat in the middle of the aisle. I did not know what to call myself. I was reluctant to use the ‘independent’ label for fear of not belonging in our two-party system, so I gave an ambiguous, politically-confused answer: fiscally conservative, socially liberal. While accurate, in the vaguest sense, I now realize this answer was imprecise. After taking the eye-opening and life-changing Introduction to American Government course, doing some individual research, taking some online quizzes, talking to some politically active people in my life, and copious self-reflection, I now have a better answer: I am a pro-business democrat. I find this label satisfying because while I strongly believe government regulation of businesses and higher taxes (across the board) are detrimental to

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.

Here, I enrolled in the several classes during Fall of 2016. Towards the end of November, I was going through some really bad mental issues. This caused my boyfriend of two and a half years to break up with me, which caused me to spend a week in the hospital for behavioral health help. Once I returned, there were three math classes that I had missed, a paper in english that was due soon, and a painting due in my painting 1 class. I was never able to make up the math classes because of the amount of work that I had missed, but I did try to finish my english class and the painting for the painting 1 class. Trying to distract myself, I signed up for another class over winter break. I managed to complete the first set of assignments, but the manager of my job at the time, Jodi, was constantly scheduling me 6 days of the week, for 7-9 hour shifts. As well as working another job about 4-5 days a week to help me pay for a trip to Hawai’i with my friend Vanessa and her significant other. With this amount of stress, I was never able to complete my course work because of working 12-14 hour shifts almost everyday at both jobs. I realize that putting off school for work was my mistake, but I was still not in a good place in my mind at the time, and only wanted to make time pass, so I could distract myself. I believed that the only way I could do this was working, and unfortunately let my school work pile

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.

From a young age, I knew how I wanted everything that concerned me. When I had to do something, whether it be an assignment, task, or chore, I knew how I wanted it done. It was frustrating as I could not portray what I was thinking to anyone else. Nevertheless, I didn’t stop trying. It became easier when I grew older and I learned how to research, generate lists, and create vision boards. When I found out about this method of communication from my mother, I fell in love with it. She taught me to prepare, and moreover to be proud of productivity. I applied everything I had learned when the “new” iPad 4 came out four years ago. I believe in the power of planning.