Reflective Writing : My Personal Employability Skills

I believed it was going to be difficult to make new friends. I was not sure how they reacted to new people or how their personalities were. I also was not sure how to approach them. When I began to talk with my new classmates, I realized we have many common interests. Making new friends became easier for me overtime by simply finding common interests and being kind to others.

When I first arrived, I became friends with the people who seemed the most familiar to me, those like me. But I was placed into classes with people who were not my friends and initially I was upset, but when I went to the classes I found myself having fun and laughing. Some of those who seemed unlike anyone I had known, were so hilarious that I just knew that I wanted to be friends with them. I will never forget the girl who made me all but collapse on the floor from

It all started at the beginning of fourth grade, when everyone moved to a new classroom, a new teacher, and, the most pivotal point, a new class of students. I, introverted and shy as I was, had to break boundaries and find different people to spend time with. My

I didn’t have many friends. Moreover, I hardly had any. I had been willing to meet new people but I just didn’t know how with nervousness coursing through my veins. During my transition into the first year of high school, I wanted to get out of my shell. I met a couple of new people thinking I could form a great bond with them. That’s what

- Time management is a skill that I am proud of and a major strength of myself; Currently in the Developing Process of Enactus, active member in DECA, Alpha Kappa Psi, and the Entrepreneurship

What I learned was that when I go to a new place and are around new people I am out of my comfort zone. When out of my comfort zone I become shy, I know how to deal with that now. This problem helps me learn how to identify that I am shy and how to break through my comfort zone and accomplished making friends through the programs that I had joined and classmates I have

I have developed a deeper appreciation for being reflective and how it greatly shapes me as a professional. I created thoughtful and well-organized unit plans with a large focus on academics yet also weaving together various competencies. Quite early on in my practicum I was able to build relationships and understand the fragile situations and complexities that were inclusive to the school community. I had many discussions with colleagues that worked with students in my class before to better under the background of my class. As I observed the response from students of lessons and discussed these findings with my SA, I realized that a shift in focus was necessary.

I have a desire to learn new things, whether it is from people I will meet, or things that I will do. I have a willingness to experience these new things. I participate, share, and contribute in hope of connecting with different people. The best way for me to do this, I have found, is by starting conversations with people with which I would have ordinarily not talked to. As a young student, I would wait until a classmate spoke to me, and as a result, I had few friends. As time went I learned that this hurt me more than the embarrassment of being ignored would, as was my fear. Recently, in my history class, I noticed a student that seemed to only speak when spoken to. Thinking of my past self I engaged in a conversation with her. This led to the realization we have very similar interests of world affairs and in turn, she and I became friends. My ways of approaching unfamiliar and different experiences are to go in with a goal to make friends with those around me and to learn something

The method with which I conducted my work differed from the way I would normally go about my work in a university setting. Due to the strict time restrictions on when I was able to complete my work, I had to be very efficient. Normally when completing assignments and university tasks, I tend to leave things to the last minute. This approach would not have worked in the professional environment that I was in. My time management skills were therefore essential to the success of the

One of the most challenging situations I’ve experienced was going into highschool. I was a little apprehensive about going into the 9th grade, because I was placed in a different high school because of rezoning in the VICC program. As a result, I was in a new school, with over two thousand new people. I was worried that I wouldn’t meet any new friends. I am very hesitant when it comes to new people in my life, which makes forming friendships with strangers profoundly difficult.

Reflective learning can be identified as a means to allow individuals to see ourselves in both a physical and metaphorical sense to see inside ourselves (Jasper & Ebrary 2006). It is about seeing things from a different perspective. Boyd and Fales (1983) defined reflective learning as a process of examining and exploring issues of concern that may be triggered by experiences and creates as well as clarifies meaning in the form of self. This leads to a change in conceptual perspectives. Reflective learning to me is an evaluation of yourself and how far you have come from where you began. Reflective thinking can help me analyze my past performance and think on how I can improve myself as well as develop the necessary skills I need to continually do better.

Employability has been defined as "the capability of getting and keeping satisfactory work". Graduate employers across all industries want more than just a degree; they want graduates who can demonstrate a wide range of skills, attributes and knowledge, often called ‘employability skills’. Graduate businesses over all ventures need something beyond a degree; they need graduates who can exhibit an extensive variety of abilities, properties and information, regularly called 'employability aptitudes'. (Hertsacuk, 2018)

Although, I am aware of my great work ethic and positive attitude, the idea of stepping into a new environment frightened me. It was like jumping with excitement and wanting to vomit from nervousness at

Past three weeks of July in summer school, I have tried my best to improve my skills and have seen my weak spots as it was coming, while writing my assignments. At the beginning of this course, I was struggling in many components that needed improvement in descriptive writing, summarizing, reading comprehension, and that resulted not succeed 2 tries of the grade 10 literacy test. Along the way of this course, I have seen a pattern where I see myself improving. After three weeks of this course has allowed me to have opportunities to improve myself in various aspects of my writing, reading, and in those aspects, I have seen my weakness that had to be fixed. Currently, I have the ability to have more confidence in various components of my writing and reading.

Before going into my reflective essay, it is important to first know what is reflective learning and journal writing. Reflective learning is the system of internally analysing and exploring a problem of concern, triggered by an experience, which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self, and which ends up in a modified conceptual angle (Boyd and Fales, 1983). Journal writing on the other hand, is the recording of each day events, personal reflections, questions about the environment, and reactions to experiences (Dyment and O’Connell, 2003). According to Kerka (1996), journal writing is considered to be vital factor of expertise processing and that it enables the learners to “articulate connections between new information and what they already recognise”.