Personal Reflective Essay

Explain how you were able to use your existing knowledge and competencies from many subjects to succeed in your task.

Over the summer, I traveled nearly 600 miles away from home to work for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. I spent twelve weeks working forty hours with the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PASHPO) and multiple PennDOT offices. During my internship, I updated information on over four hundred metal truss bridges, mapped historic sites using the Geographic Information System (GIS), presented several properties during Determination of Eligibility (DOE) discussions, and attended meetings with other staff members to observe the status of current ongoing projects. These tasks allowed me to experience the daily responsibilities of a CRGIS Coordinator, National Register Reviewer, and Historic Preservation Supervisor, positions that caught my attention and sparked a high level of curiosity. They also showcased how the theories I learned in my coursework can be utilized in real world situations.

It was once said by Colin Powell that “ there are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure”. Avid has given me the base I need to succeed in high school . I believe that avid has helped me a lot through my freshman year of high school. To begin avid has helped me by keeping me organized and staying on track . Next avid has taught me how to work through challenging problems that I had in school . Finally avid has helped push me to go a college in the near future . Avid has demonstrated to me that I can and will succeed through high school .

In Aug. 2010, I completed my B.S. in Environmental science concentration in biology at Taylor University. Courses I have taken, allowed me to be familiar with different aspects of biology, ecology and geology. As a result, I was able to experience the tangibility of these fields, for example gathering and analyzing field samples. Furthermore, one summer was spent taking and examining water quality samples, as well as examining plants and animal specimens. For my senior project, I designed and completed a practicum, where I removed invasives plants from a local forest near my hometown. After accomplishing the objectives, the superintendent offer me the position of a natural resource specialist.

I am an individual like no other I have ever met, not to be arrogant or boastful, but to explain the extent of my uniqueness. I was born to a foreign-born Serbian mother and a half Italian, half English father. I was born in New York City, but was raised in a suburban town on Long Island. With my paternal grandparents, Pops and Nana, I went on many travels, both around the United States and Atlantic Ocean (they owned a large sail boat). With my maternal grandparents, Baba and Deda, I went on many urban adventures, having probably traversed nearly the whole of New York City on foot, exploring, eating, and playing in playgrounds with new found friends. Also from my maternal grandparents, I became fluent in my understanding of the Serbian

In the beginning of the year I was not confident in my writing abilities. I did not know how to format different types of essays, nor did I know the meticulous research that goes into each and every paper. When we started off with narrative writings I felt fairly comfortable, but little did I know that I was a grammatical nightmare. My most common mistake was forgetting about commas before coordinating conjunctions. I would also often times become wordy or improper whenever I wasn't sure how to get an idea across. Whenever the year started I was clueless on how to format any dialogue at all, but as the year progressed these dialogue mishaps dwindled down until in my final papers they were much improved. Finally, my greatest personal improvement

Improvement takes time, effort, and often times late nights. Many evenings I have labored overtime to improve myself. Often times staying awake till midnight to ensure that my daybook notes were the definition of perfection or even adding an extra paragraph to my essays to ensure that it would support my thesis. In English class, I explored my ability to read literature, writing essays, collaborating on discussions, and most importantly, learning. Regardless of my extensive background in each of these areas, I recieved the opportunity to expand and develop my skills more in some way as a reader, a writer, a collaborator, and especially a learner. Perfection is not always attainable, yet I should strive for the best adaption of my work.

When I was eight years old I was diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), a disorder characterized by an extremely painful chronic burning sensation and amplified symptoms of everyday injuries. This disorder presented itself as an obstacle in my life, both physically and mentally. With no cure known I learned how to make myself feel normal and be able to do everyday tasks, while at the same time dealing with the bullying and the emotional toll that having a chronic pain disorder can cause. While health issues are not something anybody wants, I believe that this challenge in my life helped to teach me lessons that made me who I am today.

The first time I realized that writing was what I wanted to do in life was on the corner of Powell Street in San Fransisco. I had just ended a call with my comatose grandfather, telling him I loved him and goodbye. Standing in the middle of happening San Fransisco, I’d bid the longest goodbye to my best friend and all I could think to do was write out how I felt. I sat in the closest McDonald’s, drank copious amounts of coffee, and wrote for hours on end. While being a Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath lover, my bawling over a styrafome cup was less than romantic, but at the time, there was nothing stopping me. After befriending the 24-hour staff at McDonalds, I returned home and kept on writing. This story has always stayed with me as the day I figured out my coping mechanism, my love, and something that has shaped every aspect of my life. I often think that maybe I have known my whole life that I was meant to write through constant reading and writing, but it wasn’t until that day that I really understood what it meant to be driven to do something forever.

The different activities I have participated in over the past 3 semesters have been incredibly rewarding! The majority of the activities I have participate in over the past 3 years have been on the USF campus, the organizations that I have completed these hours with were primarily with the offices of the Global Citizens Project (GCP) and the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement’s Lead Fellows Board (CLCE), but also some hours were completed with the USF chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and with the GloBULL Ambassadors. The various activities performed spanned a wide range of different things including planning events that help to promote leadership across USF with the CLCE, tabling at events and presenting presentations with the Global Citizens Project, and

While reading this article and thinking about my answers, I became aware that this article is more relevant than I originally thought. I’m currently a junior and it came to me that I’ll be potentially interviewing for accounting jobs approximately a year from now. I started to think about my experiences during my internship, school, and athletics. I’ll discuss my experiences working in a team, setting and reaching goals, handling challenges, and facing a difficult situation. These questions and answers will help me with job interviews in the near future.

When I interviewed with Brian and Jeff at the beginning of the summer I had very little idea what went on in the logistics world besides the fact that it is a rapidly growing field that needs more professionals now. I didn’t know anything that happened in the real world of logistics, only what I have read and learned in books at UMSL. There is a very big difference between reading about the processes, regulations, and technology and going in to work and experiencing how all those things are used in the real world. Aside from those things, I didn’t know that brokerage in freight was so prevalent.

Please answer thoughtfully the following questions and then upload a Word document of your work here. Your total length should be about 400 words.

The age 19 is a very strange time in my life. Technically, I am considered an adult, but in reality it is more of an awkward middle ground between teen hood and being a real life adult. Not yet feeling the full effect of 20 and the responsibilities that follow have not sunk in yet. Everyone around me says “live it up it’s our last year to be ignorant!”, and being in college it seems like all that matters is who can shotgun a beer the fastest at a party or how many people someone slept with. There seems to be a lack of morality in college. This topic morality and making ethical choices between right and wrong in college is the biggest personal struggle for me as I continue stumbling my way through college.

Before this module, I was nervous about will I be able to get a placement. Or even how to apply for a placement? Although I had a general knowledge about CV, I didn’t know that CV must be tailored for each company you are applying for. I just had one CV which I used for everything. But now, because of Management Skills module, I am more relaxed as I have a basic understanding about how to apply, tailor CV so it meets the requirement of the business and what employee look for.