Personal Reflection

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

Throughout the process of writing this paper, I have learned more about my topic than I thought I would. The original idea for this project was to outline the basis of why animal cruelty was wrong. Also to give ways to what we can contribute to the topic being researched. But, not only did I just do research and present it, instead, I dug deeper and got more involved in my topic. Although writing the paper took more time than expected. This piece of information did not come that easily to me the ending result was the result; it was harder than usual to write it definitely paid off. This by far was my most successful piece of writing and made me an even better writer.

It won’t always be easy, but it will always be worth it. These wise words are from my favorite teacher, my academic team coach, and an all-around great woman. At some point, without my realizing that it had happened, these words crept in and became my mantra. I worked hard to get where I am, and I’ll continue working hard, not because it is easy, but because I know that I will be better for it.

When it comes to a person’s characteristics, preferences, and beliefs it can be hard to make the distinction between the three. Not only that, but when asked a simple question: “What are some of your defining characteristics?” It’s so easy to just draw a blank. It may not even be that you don’t want to brag, it’s hard to talk about things like that on the spot. Almost as if you were asked, “What’s your favorite movie and you’ve suddenly forgotten every movie you’ve ever seen. In other words, self reflection is difficult. Namely, making a distinction between the different aspects that make up who you are as a person.

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

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.

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.

Growing up, I was never good at writing and struggled with it. In eighth grade, we had to write a paper on our superhero and I wrote about my mom. I saw everyone wrote two or three pages while I wrote one. I felt a bit weird about that and I knew it was not a good paper. Prior to sophomore year of high school, we had to read a book called Jane Eyre. I did not like reading and read only half the book and just looked up summaries online. I had Miss Figueroa for an English teacher that year, and I was so scared and nervous because she was a difficult teacher. We discussed the book, and then we wrote a rough draft essay about it. In October, we had to take a P.O.W. Exam on this book, which had three essay topics to choose from. I remember my rough draft was the same exact topic as the one on the exam, and I thought this is going to be easy. A few weeks later we got our results back, and it required a three to pass and I got lower than that. I made mistakes on grammar, my paragraphs were not consistent, and my introduction and thesis were not being well- written. This made me so sad because I could not graduate high school without passing this exam. We had to write in-class essay on novels we read and essays at home. I remember struggling to come up with topics to write about and forming ideas. It took me so long to finish these essays, and they were never well written. I was never good with timed essay tests as I felt like I was being rushed and had no time to check my work or

Since early on in life, numerous individuals have been hearing people talk about college. Parents usually encourage their children to go to college, get a degree, get engaged on campus, be someone great in life and be important in the society. Hearing people talk about their college experience can push someone to go there and see what is there and how is that going to improve himself/herself. When actually going there, then come the experiences and the hard work and experiences come along in every aspect, such as academic, career, and personal facets of someone’s life.

My favorite high school English teacher once said, “You have to want to be a better writer. I can’t make you a better writer without at least some effort on your part guys.” The implied lesson in this quote, about writing and effort, is something I remembered throughout high school and coming into college. In English 109H, I wanted to understand how to transition my writing to a meet a college level. Through in-class peer-editing exercises and identifying and improving problems consistently identified in my writing, I was able to improve my understanding and performance in the course goals of Conventions and Critical Thinking and Composing. However, I still need work on wording changes within Reflection and Revision.

I am 18 year old female who lives on campus and am a first time college student with a full time course load. I do not have a job, but I am an athlete (I play golf). In Unit 1, for me, the most helpful topics we learn about were the learning styles and time management. The three learning styles are auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. I discovered that I was a visual and kinesthetic learner. I already knew I was a visual learner (someone who learns best from seeing things), but was unaware I was just as much of a kinesthetic learner. A kinesthetic learner is someone who learns best by doing instead of just listening or reading. Kinesthetic learners enjoy hands-on learning. After learning this new information, I started to make an extra effort to practice the material I was learning in class instead of just listening to the lecture and rereading my notes and the textbook. This was most beneficial in my chemistry class. I practiced completing equations over and over until I got the correct answer every time, which paid off in the end because I ended up not missing a single equation on the test. I use my visual side of learning by in psychology by picturing the information as real life scenarios and in speech by writing out and rewriting lines to help me memorize my speech. It is imperative that as a student beginning at IUSB, that you understand your learning style since studying with the wrong learning style would make it difficult to succeed. Once a student knows their style,

This MPX years has been very valuable to me as a learner. This year, I have greatly expanded my knowledge and skills as a learner. My Success can be observed in my POL and past projects. I would also like to explain MPX was the right choice for me.

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

As relational human beings, people communicate with each other both verbally and nonverbally. Therefore, communication constitutes an important and unavoidable aspect of one’s daily life. Because of communication’s importance, it is beneficial for individuals to investigate their own communication strengths and weaknesses. When people become aware of personal communication weakness, it enables them to take useful measures to improve their communication effectiveness. Thus, in this paper, I will explore my own personal communication strengths and weakness and develop strategies to improve my communication with others.