Personal Reflection

I have made a phenomenal amount of progress this semester. English 101 has made me a better writer and editor. Because the modules and peer-editing reviews it was easy to correct and learn from my mistakes. As a writer, I think I can still make an amount of improvement. With it being from mechanic errors and to clear organization skills. As for providing clear and relevant examples I have made improvements. I say I’m an average, but growing writer. I have my skills and weakness, but I still try harder.

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.

NCSSM Residential and Online students must have a high level of maturity, whether living away from home or working daily without teachers or supervision. Please help us understand why you are mature enough to manage your own deadlines, schedule and academic interest.

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

I believe I can keep a cool head during difficult situations which allows me to think clearly and not worry. When my team sees this, they feel secure and are able to let go of the negative and keep moving forward. This leads to my team and I being proactive in starting new projects instead of worrying about something we couldn’t control.

My involvement in research as an undergraduate has prepared me to overcome any challenge that I will inevitably encounter. In the lab, I stepped out of my comfort zone, and as a result I learned a lot, both academically and personally. I learned to take things in stride; to work step-by-step, little-by-little. When I read and write in smaller increments, rather than trying tackle it all at once, not only am I less stressed out and anxious, my understanding of the material improves greatly as well. Additionally, my critical thinking skills have greatly increased, not only as a result of aiding in the design and execution of various research projects, but because of the numerous research articles I have read. With each article, I had to

The reflection I see in the mirror tells me I appear the same as I did in high school. Same baby face. Same acne. Same person. I feel unchanged in my appearance, and I have carried that belief to other spheres in my life. Yet, looking back to how I accomplished work in high school, I can see the noticeable difference in the amount of time I spend on my work now compared to then. In addition, I entered Taylor not knowing a single soul. While I was not exactly Miss Popular in high school, I did have a good group of friends, who all embarked on their own journeys after graduation. Creating those friendships took time and effort, and I lost them in a matter of a few days of going off to school. So, I had to begin from scratch with friends when I started classes, and it has not been without trials and tribulations, like most experiences have been like at college so far.

As I was reading this book, I kept having awe moments because I have either seen the material covered in real time or have thought about it. Out of the five career strategy components, the two that stood out for me were extending experiences and networking/connecting. Reflecting on my educational and professional career, these two themes have been the most relevant.

English Comp I have taught me a great deal. This subject has helped improve on some writing skills that I never payed attention too as I began my writing career in middle school. I have improved in a major way in several subjects that can impact a person’s writing in a dramatic way. Evidence from three of my EN113 papers this semester provides evidence that suggest that I have succeeded in improving on my organizational skills, identifying grammar issues, and elaborating and describing events in more detail. Reviewing my previous papers, I have realized that I am still working on improving my MLA format.

Week two and three were very interesting and eventful. The most impressive part was learning to use and work with the SCM. The system is a state of art and navigating through the system was educative. Any information you need on patient to help you complete your care effectively is precisely, focused and clearly documented in SCM. However, the second week I was still a little nervous and I chose to work with a client with less complex issues but curious enough to want to learn about heart sounds in a client with arterial fibrillation. I also wanted to practice taking pulses manually. My client was very cooperative, optimistic and determined to leave the hospital and go home. At the end of my shift I was so sure that he would be discharged the following day; but to my surprise; when I came back the following day, his countenance had changed, he spoke less and seemed uninterested in everything around him. During my six hours, my client had been moved at least four times from room to hallway then another room and back in the hallway before I finished my shift. This made me really sad and I felt helpless I could not help but wonder if this was the reasoning he was unhappy. I did my best to make him feel cared for and provided as much comfort as I could.

When Essay 1 was assigned, I immediately realized that I had a lot of freedom in what I could write. The whole portfolio system created an encouraging environment for exploring and trying out new things: for the first time, I wasn’t focused on grades. I think what changed my attitude about writing was both the fact that I had a lot of time to work on my essay and plenty of opportunities to fix it later on, so I wasn’t too concerned with mistakes. As Professor Vecera puts it: “it’s all a working process”. This really helped me feel comfortable with writing. I didn’t feel rushed at all and I didn’t feel the pressure that usually came with turning in an essay.

The first four chapters reading were really helpful to understand more about yourself, self-worth, your personality type, your circle control, also help you understand about how people that you interact with react in a positive or negative way, and how to deal with different type of behaviors or personalities. I like all the truth of 1 to 4, but I picked truth #2, which explained about your circle control that contains 4-P personality style, specific self-worth, and external support system. Working with older people can be challenging because different residents/clients or staff may have different personalities and sometimes it is hard to approach them without knowing them or their personalities. However, the longer you work with them, the more you will be able to identify their personalities and able to approach them without a problem.

From the test, I realized I have a strong personality in agreeableness and sociability. Before the test, I did not realize that I had this strength and, therefore, it was underutilized. The sociability aspect will create better working relations with fellow students during the class group discussion and with the coworker, this will be extended in the future career. Additionally, I realized I have low emotional stability. This means I handle the situation based on the emotion and I am easily overpowered by emotion when making decisions (Phillipy, 2010).

Many people would like to make a difference, not only in their own life, but in others’ lives as well. Deepak Chopra once said, “Everyone has a purpose in life…a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.” All of us, at one point in our lives, have to make the difficult decision of the goals we want to work towards. We all have certain goals, standards, and expectations of ourselves. Not everyone will figure out what they want to be right away, and some will know from the very beginning. My journey began my senior year of high school.

“Know who you are, and be it. Know what you want, and go out and get it!”