Reflection Paper

As my first semester at Rosemont College is coming to an end soon, I would like to tell you how I got here and how will I stay here. While applying to college Rosemont was not first choice. It was on the bottom of my list. But when I came to visits and listened to what the tour guides were saying I thought Rosemont would be the place for me. The biggest problem, for me was I wanted to stay close to home. I have family at home that I really did not want to be away from, it was my first time being away from home. I know that being away from home would be a change for me, it was a hard decision to make but I made it! The first step of getting to Rosemont was applying into then coming to visit, after my first visit I was still uninterested into the school. The campus was dull and dry and I did not see any students walking around or any of them coming out of class. Shortly after Spring Break of 2017 I had to make a choice. I began to look at the bigger picture of why I wanted to go. While Rosemont was not a place that I wanted to come, but I knew that I would get all my work done and more. I was happy I made the decision I made, because I am staying focus getting all of my work done.

In 2006 I started college because it’s what one is supposed to do after High School. It soon matured to, going to college to find myself. Where that meant experiencing a breadth of topics that captivate and inspire me to seek out answers; which hasn’t changed. Every class I took gave me new perspectives where I gained understanding to allow me to be more open, and greater insight. However, the obstacles of still being a teenager, trying to find myself, left me struggling to cope with my studies and every-day life. Forcing me to hit the pause button my student life.

Change has always been a part of my life. One of the biggest changes happened when I was 15 years old. I started to think of college in my last years of middle school. Until then College was someone else’s reality. Not many people from my community attended college. They felt that their futures were supposed to be spent being a clerk or fisherman. The change happened on a trip to visit mainland college towns, explore possibilities beyond the islands cultural landscape

College is a huge step to take in life and causes lots of change in one’s life. In a way, it stealthily teaches you how to be independent and breaks you away from the sheltered life you’re in and throws you into a whole new world. When I think about my life so far, and what I have ahead, I now know that I am ready to take this step in life. Growing up and moving around a lot, I had to become adaptable to new situations and environments. This is a genuine skill that has become a true aspect to my life. My best adaption was entering high school. That’s where my interests truly flourished. I joined marching band and swim. These decisions changed my high school life in a big way. I enjoyed showing up every day and it gave me confidence.

I have learned several things throughout this class, things that will help me in the future and as I make my way through the University of South Alabama as well as help me grow as a person. One of the first things I learned was how to keep a calendar. The first assignment I did was to create a schedule. So, I made one and have stuck to it pretty closely. I do have a late assignment every now and then, but I am working on it and making sure to write everything down in my calendar. I do that for everything, my work schedules , fun events I would like to go to, exercising , sleeping and most importantly study time.

By the age of seven, I was sick of school and I wanted out by any means.

During the summer of 2017 I worked on two different internships or projects. Both of the internships were completely different from the other. in one I work at a computer all day and the other I would spend out in the field working hands on with different equipment. I got to experience both ends of the spectrum of natural resource science. Both internships were helpful in helping me figure out which fields of natural resources that I was interested in, and which I might be interested in pursuing for future study and possible future job fields.

As a type-A individual, I really do not like it when things do not go as they have been planned. Unfortunately, this has caused some additional stresses and anxieties in my life which I do not have much control over. As a double-major, it is so crucial to stay organized and have a schedule to stay organized and complete everything that is required of me. But, college can be stressful, but I think that I am handling it much better than I could have imagined. Throughout my educational experiences here during my second year at UConn, I have been able to handle stresses much better than I have previously in high school and especially throughout my freshman year. As I am writing this, I realized that by surrounding myself with individuals who I know are positive influences on me and planning time for myself, I am able to reduce stresses in my life.

First I would like to mention that I enjoyed reading this Chapter as it hit home for me because the teachers from Loyola Marymount University believe in building family and community strengths and I fit that mold. Even though demonstrating passion and empathy is mostly frowned upon by many in our institutions due to concentrating on teaching to the test. If you provide your students with a safe learning environment, my experiences have shown that they are more apt to flourish. As a result, I provide this type of atmosphere in my classroom. For example, one of the teachers interviewed, Leticia Ornelas, had “Lotion Day” Nieto (2013). I have shared my lotion with students as well. Some of them fall under the English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. And like she mentions, it provides them with a safe, caring, and passionate learning environment because you build that rapport. Building teacher to student relationships is essential to student outcomes.

When I decided to register for this class I chose it because out of my options the only one that seemed interesting was women’s studies. I did not think it would have an impact on me or my way of thinking. Looking back, I have learned so much that I will take with me in life and not just use in the classroom. Through the semester, we have talked about many aspects in this course that have made me relate and connect to past experiences in my life. This class has helped me to make changes in my thought process and I am glad that I have had the chance to learn everything that I have. It has been very beneficial to learn about the social constructs that I always saw in my life. I have connected many aspects of this class to my life in various ways and situations.

On December 12th, 2014, we were in church listening to the pastor preach about helping others. After church, we talked to the pastor about taking up for the homeless people in Anderson County. Instead of having a church that night the whole church came with us to give them the stuff. I like that I help the homeless people. One of the people that we help was crying like a baby because she was so happy to see us.The little thing we did make them happy. They look like they were going to cry. The homeless were delighted to see the stuff we gave them. I could hear the sound of happiness in the room because they were laughing. The room was as happy as a child with its mother.

It was mid-July in the summer of 2017. I learned that my grandparents were taking a trip to see my Aunt Vickie and Uncle Bill down in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. They asked me if I wanted to tag along with them. I had many different emotions when I found out. My grandmother has memory issues, so I would have to tolerate that for about twelve hours in a boring, annoying van. My grandfather was on oxygen, so I would have to load up his tanks, oxygen machine, and the hoses, and if you do not know, those are bulky and heavy. Those were some negatives, but once there, I would have a four-wheeler to ride and miles of land to make trails on, cities nearby to explore (Frankfort, Louisville, and Lexington), and many distilleries to visit (Lawrenceburg is in the heart of bourbon country), so I was excited.

I don’t really know when exactly I noticed that I was “different” but, about 8th grade. My education started in pre-kindergarten where showed my first signs of emotional, social, and communication disabilities, however it was just chalked up to being a little slow. In elementary school teachers and students verbally, socially, and physically bullied me. Students both my age and older would use “dodgeball to physically attack me. I was often made fun of for being slow or “weird” and the teachers themselves would often leave me out of class and would use me as an example of what not to be like. Finally, after being told by my principle in front of my parents that I was “never going to amount to anything” it was right about then when I was officially diagnosed with Autism. After that I left the elementary school and I went to three other schools where I could get help from teachers that were prepared to help. In some of the schools I was still bullied though not as horrible and others were perfectly fine, but I not still didn’t receive the help that I needed to become motivated and overcome “scars” left behind. During my early education mother helped me communicate a phrase that I felt perfectly describe how I felt “Spiraling down in a world that secluded those who were different”. After going to 6th grade I finally meet people who felt the same way as I did, however it was short lived as junior high came around my mom decided I should be home schooled. After a year and half

I was walking down the hallway of the hospital when I heard a patient calling out for help in a familiar language. As I walked into the Russian patient’s room, I noticed a group of nurses trying to decipher her concerns. Despite their efforts, she was still crying out for help due to the language barrier hindering her communication with the nurses about her severe abdominal pain. I happily stepped in and translated between the patient, named Yekaterina, and the nurses. The genuine look of gratefulness in her eyes along with the constant “sposibo” of gratitude I received from her for doing such a simple deed was truly something I will never take for granted. Quite often we find ourselves falling into a daily routine, making it easy to lose sight of why we are doing what we love in the first place. After many months of volunteering at the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, this fortuitous instance of being in the right place at the right time reminded me of why I was at the hospital. I was there to help Yekaterina, and other patients like her in the future. I treasure this moment and this memory because it represents perhaps the first time when I stopped feeling like I was simply trying to help patients, and instead stepped into my true role as a healthcare professional making a tangible difference in the lives of people in need of healing.

Overall, I feel as if our presentation went very well. If there was anything I could change it would be having more class dialogue and it not seem so one sided. I also would have liked to ask more questions considering the class already had prior knowledge, of this content. The questions that I would have like to have asked most are the higher order thinking questions; such as, how and why. An example would be, “Why would you select the more colorful curriculum map over the one already filled out?” The anticipated response would hopefully be: “The colorful curriculum map is broken down into each month in the school year; whereas, the filled in map only has two months.” When creating a curriculum map is should be done for the entire school year and not just a month or so at a time. While assessing all of the feedback that was obtained, it was noted that everyone gave extremely positive with minimal critiques. I enjoyed how the class respected our wishes of giving only constructive feedback. The few suggestions for improvement were for me for to speak up, for Brianna to stand up and maybe move around the room, slow down a little (which was corrected as we presented and noted by some), one person said give more guidance on what to write in the organizer, and one said she wished we would have informed them sooner that not all the puzzle pieces would be complete. When it came to the organizer we did not really focus to much on that because we know everyone learns in a different