Personal Reflection

The story of my history as a writer is a very long one. My writing has come full circle. I have changed very much throughout the years, both as I grew older and as I discovered more aspects of my own personality. The growth that I see when I look back is incredible, and it all seems to revolve around my emotions. I have always been a very emotional girl who feels things keenly. All of my truly memorable writing, looking back, has come from experiences that struck a chord with my developing self. This assignment has opened my eyes, despite my initial difficulty in writing it. When I was asked to write down my earliest memory of writing, at first I drew a blank. All of a sudden, it became very clear to me, probably because it had some

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.

A personal reflection that I discuss is my personal experience in my K-12 education with an educator I consider to be a “white ally.” It was informative for me to read the excerpt of “Becoming an Ally Breaking the Cycle of Oppression,” by Anne Bishop (2015). Here, I discuss my personal experience with my elementary school teacher, Ms. Erickson (a white ally) and proceed with my exploration of this educational experience in relation to power, privilege, and education. Then, I reflect on the impact being in Ms. Erickson’s class has provided me and working with diverse students.

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.

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.

There is a quote from Claxton (1998), ‘If the roast potatoes are slow to brown, you can turn up the oven. But if you try to speed up the baking of meringues, they burn… The mind, too, works at different speeds.’ It stimulated the idea of the individualism of learning and thought, and how every person has a unique learning identity and approach.

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.

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.

Being a human comes with inherent values, beliefs, and identities that both are a part of one’s hardwiring and develop over time. These core components of the human existence shape and influence every interaction and experience one may have throughout their life. In this way, I am no different from any other person. The course of my life has hinged on these abstract concepts of self. Further, my fundamental values, beliefs, and identities will impact the way I interact with clients and systems in my role as a social worker. To understand these, one must first understand my background and upbringing.

Back in the spring of 2012 I was at a crossroads do I reenlist in the army or do i simple just take my discharge and move on to a new path with a slower pace. The military had been all I knew for the last eight years. These where my brothers we had been to hell and back together. We came face to face with devil in the Middle East and walked away from it uninjured. However the continuous rotations overseas would break anyone down three months in country then six months back in the states it was a continuous cycle that never ended. Life in Ranger Regiment wasn’t easy the mission tempo was fast paced and demanding. I had seen a few guys from the unit break and go into a form of psychos an then med. boarded out. Then there was the guys that got out. It mostly went one or two was with no grey area. They drank themselves into the abyss or they would excel at the new path they ventured out on. All of these guys in every category I had the highest respect for.

The nature of a human person is to learn new things and improve his capacity as days move on. Experience is described as the best teacher by many psychologists and people are encouraged to include their experience even in job application. This shows how important experience is. Positive psychology assists so much in asking questions which in themselves when answered can have a very positive impact on an individual (Kolb,2014). It is mostly concerned with things that are tasked to make the person happy. A famous saying says that the secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others add their troubles. The question asked at this stage is to ensure that they inspire and cultivate positive emotions and nurture relationship with the major aim of making the person happy.

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.

When you understand your emotions, you can keep them in check. When you know your weakness and strengths, it helps to keep you emotionally healthy. During this week, I have learned many new and interesting ideas like how to be in check, how to recognize feelings in a social situation and how I compare with my family and friends when it comes to my Emotional Intelegance.

Repeatedly, the term adolescence is used described an awkward and reckless period in one’s life; a phase parents dread and individuals struggle to trudge through with their sanity. However, looking past the challenges that may arise at this point in a person’s life, adolescence is a time to explore one’s identity, make decisions for oneself, and take on new and exciting responsibilities. Adolescence is a transitional period from childhood to early adulthood, starting around 10 to 12 years old and ending at about 18 or 19 years of age (Santrock, 2014). Concerning my own life, adolescence is when I started making more decisions for myself such as what I wanted to pursue regarding education and the kind of career I want to work towards, what

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.