Reflection Paper

When I first decided to expand my education, it had been so long since I had been to school, and I was very hesitant. I talked at length about my decision with my husband and with his encouragement, decided to enroll but still was not quite sure which degree program to enroll in. I knew that this was something that I had always wanted to do since I obtained my Associates Degree in Nursing, but I did not have the courage, nor did I want to give up the time with my family and children. I second guessed my abilities and my knowledge because it had been so long since I had been in college. Now that my children are about to graduate high school and

On September 6, 2017, I were documented for an incident that involved a University Housing policy violation. I was charged with violating the University Housing Alcohol 1.2 policy. With my violation, came consequences. I met with The Residence Conduct Coordinator to discuss my actions and came to the conclusion that I would have to schedule a meeting with The Campus Alcohol and Drug Education Center (CADEC) and with that, a reflection paper.

Many people question the importance of a college education. By attending an institution of higher education, individuals are provided an opportunity that is not as widespread to those who choose not to attend. Earning a college degree is said to prepare you, both intellectually and socially, for your working career and adult life. But no one said earning a degree would be easy. There are many issues commonly experienced by college students that can sometimes pose major challenges to earning a degree. One of the greatest challenges that I have faced throughout out my college career, is writing an academic essay. Even though my writing has gotten better over the past couple of years, I still stress over assignments. Not only have this course

Learning something new is something to strive for. However, are all the lessons we learn good ones? After all, there are two sides to every coin. A lot of the times it is easy to find the bad lessons learned but what about the good? Well, that takes a lot more thought. Ironically these were the thoughts running through my head that day, that dreadful day which is permanently burned into the back of my mind.

Writing has never been one of my strengths. Even in high school, when I took an AP English literature course, I did not enjoy writing papers if need be. Since I did not fancy writing papers, I never developed a systematic writing process. I would write the paper last minute and pray for an A, but college doesn’t work like that. When I came to college, I placed into music classes first so that I could develop those skills, thus leaving my core classes (including English) on the backburner. Although I do not regret this decision, having a two-year gap between English classes made it difficult to readapt. Instead of spending hours practicing instruments and music theory, I faced the challenging task of shifting gears to spend a majority of my time behind my laptop. How was I supposed to manage this new workload?

At a young age money, politics, or first world problems never occurred to me. Sadly, as I grew older all of these things hit me at once. From when I started my first job at fifteen, this thing called “taxes” took money out of my check. At that age, my mother showed me all of the bills she has to deal with such as, house payments, insurance, and car payments. My entire world was turned around on that subject. This led me to start caring about America's crises and why it's so stressful being an adult. After bringing a kid into this cold harsh world, this subject concerned me beyond belief. A flash of the real world hit me in the face hard. Starting with the little things, this is how the 2017 presidential election changed my view on this world and my world as well.

Some of my strengths in this domain would be in my ability to provide comfort measures for my clients, being present with them and taking measure to preserve their personhood. I also feel that I have managed to maximize my client participation and control in their health and healing. During one of my shifts, my client expressed her frustration with being on precautions and that she felt like she was never going to get better. We had a talk about why was on precautions and I sympathized with the fact that it can make one feel isolated. I made sure to stay and visit with this client more often throughout that shift. She also expressed her frustration with having another infection. She was recovering from sepsis and has had two sub pubic catheters inserted, one fell out and the other became infected. I listened to her frustrations, and we talked about her health journey thus far. We ended the conversation by agree to try and think positive that this next one will workout and that she is a strong woman for having gone through everything she has. She agreed and thanked me for listening to her. In addition, I feel like I do a good job at explaining what I am doing with my clients, and ensuring their privacy when preforming skills.

On September 12, 14, and 19, 2017 I had the pleasure of tutoring Haven. Haven is a nine-year-old, who is in fourth grade at Mark Twain Elementary School in Hannibal, MO. In each session, we would work together for 60 minutes. I was able to learn a lot of things while tutoring. First off, going in to tutor Haven and not knowing really anything about her and her learning preferences. It was hard not knowing what strategies helped her the most when reading or which ones made it more difficult for her. But that is going to be with any student(s), you just have to go with the flow. You will learn those things as you get to know the student. That is what happened with Haven and I, within the first tutoring session she let me know her learning preferences and what she liked. Then within the sessions we were together, I knew which strategy helped her while reading and what she struggled with.

In our everyday lives, we tend to categorize people because of their race, culture, their socioeconomic status, and judge people by their looks, age, ability, and gender. When I was working at a daycare past summer of grade 9, I met one Chinese girl who was around 4-5 years old. One time I witness her classmates making fun of her because she has a asian accent when she talks in English, her eyes are small, her mom works at a restaurant with low pay. Even during break, I would always see her sitting in a corner all alone, while others were having fun. Therefore, I took the courage to talk to her. Throughout the conversation, I realized that she was mad at herself because she has a different race from others, language barrier between her and her classmates and she was ashamed of her mother working at a restaurant because other parents work at a higher pay occupation.

During my first few years in the United States, my family was constantly moving between New York and Florida because my dad was searching for long-term employment. My family resided in a basement during our two year stay in Staten Island, New York. Living in a basement was very tough because there was no natural light and the space was very cramped for a family of five. Living in a basement was also tough during the winter because basements are often poorly insulated, which kept the basement quite cold during the winter. My family later moved to Florida for a couple of years after living in New York and we have resided in Orlando, Florida for about twenty years now. I started school in Florida at the age of five and when I first attended elementary school, I was in ESOL classes. ESOL classes help teach the English language to students that are not born in the United States (like myself) or to students which English is not their native language. I took these classes from kindergarten up to the fourth grade when I passed an ESOL exit exam. I first learned of this news during a parent-teacher conference when my teacher informed my parents and I that I had passed out of my ESOL classes and this was one of my proudest moments because of how happy it made my parents. As I got older, these experiences taught me the importance of helping those who are in need to put a smile on someone’s face and to provide the hope that things will get better for those going through rough patches in

My set of beliefs comes from my own experience as a student and in the classroom. As a student, my school was extremely poverty stricken which meant that it seemed as if no one wanted to be there nor did they care. However, there were a few teachers and even administrators sprinkled throughout the district who did care and when a student found those special educators, one latched on. We were all extremely eager to be fed academically and believed in. According to Ministry of Education, Guyana (2016), “Creating a positive learning environment is essential for success in the classroom. Teachers should create a welcoming atmosphere where student feel safe and willing to share” (para. 2). This kind of atmosphere was created for me as a student. For example, Mrs. Debbie Schlicht was the librarian for grades 4-12 and was also the yearbook and newspaper sponsor. In 2011, a young little eighth grade girl decided to tryout for the yearbook staff and despite how terrible the double-page spread she submitted was, that little girl made the yearbook staff for the following school year. Then, her ninth grade year she decided she wanted to be her school’s yearbook editor during her senior year. Three years later, she walked across the stage at the Gertrude Ford Center at the University of Mississippi where she was named ‘2015 High school Yearbook Editor of the Year’ for the state of Mississippi. She later went on to be a yearbook editor on the collegiate level. The little girl described

The purpose of this project was to provide teacher candidates, such as myself, with an opportunity to gain experience in a preschool/pre kindergarten environment. I was given the opportunity to collaborate with the lead teacher in a pre-k classroom to learn about the daily classroom routines. I partnered with a child to implement in-class and out-of-class activities. Through implementation of these activities, I was given the opportunity to collaborate with the child, her mom, and the teacher to come up with age appropriate activities that interested my student. I completed my fieldwork at Kindercare Learning Center in Richfield, OH. I have worked at Kindercare for over a year and I was extremely excited to see what I was able to learn by doing my field work at my place of employment and learn more about the incredible child care center at which I am lucky to work. This location of Kindercare recently earned a 5 star rating from Step Up To Quality. The teacher in which I shadowed this semester was Ms. Jackie. Ms. Jackie has been teaching at Kindercare for a little over one year. She attended Bowling Green University, studying middle level education. She left school prior to graduation as she realized she did not want to teach middle school. Shortly after leaving Bowling Green, she received a job at Kindercare. She initially was hired as the preschool teacher working with the three year olds, but after about 6 months, she moved up to being the pre-k classroom lead teacher.

During this semester of Intro to College Writing at Gateway Technical College, I have found that learning to write a proper essay paper is compelling to me. In high school, writing essays was a very difficult thing for me because the teachers would try and help but everything they said blew over my head. Jessica Gleason, the instructor for Intro to College Writing class, helped explain in detail how to properly write a APA formatted essay paper. I learned what my introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion should include, which I struggled with. Another compelling topic in this class we completed was the “Plagiarism” game in class. Before this class I would have to write research, papers and include quotes, statements from an article, which I would include but not know how to properly cite them in my paper. The game that was associated with plagiarism was the Goblin Game, you need to figure out the situations that represented plagiarism. This game helped me with following the proper steps and knowing what not to put and to put in my paper.

Everyone at some point in their life has had the dream where they are falling, but they never actually hit the ground. This dream is symbolic of life. Regardless of how far you fall you never hit the ground. A friend of mine, currently in pharmacy school, confides in me about how he wishes that he had done things my way, the right way as he calls it. Nevertheless, I did not grasp what he meant so one day, I implored him to explain. According to him, the “right,” way is by not failing classes the first time, finishing college in 4 years, and be smart about taking the MCAT. Essentially, not screwing up the first time, so you can continue with your goals the first time around instead of getting older and wasting time. While my friend may have been right in some aspects, my personal experiences have taught me that there really is no right way. However, life does not ultimately work out the way one imagines. You do fail, you do break down, you are frightened and you learn to get up regardless of the circumstances.

After I take ACC 221 and ACC 222, this semester I decide to take ACC 321. The name of the class is intermediate financial accounting. Before I took the class, I heard the class is the most difficult class among accounting class because of there is a lot of materials to cover in very short time. There are around 15 chapters to cover in a semester so that we have to learn a chapter in a week because we have to use some classes to take the exams and quizzes. And if I want to learn this course well and get a good grade as what I did in ACC221 and ACC222. I will have to read the book, listen to the teacher carefully, do the quiz well, prepare for the exam well and finish all the homework online. It is very important to