Workplace Reflection Paper

This EER period is out of the normal cycle due to my crossing the threshold for Tenure. I am truly excited that the Department is reviewing me for this honor. Mission Sierra Leone has given me the tools that I will need to succeed in the Service and I am grateful to both the Department and the Mission for the opportunity to begin here. During this abbreviated cycle, my team and I have worked very hard on many challenging projects over an unprecedented transfer season that exchanged 80% of the Department of State (DOS) personnel at post. To facilitate this season my team and I planned far in advance and were able to not only make smooth transitions but also make significant upgrades to our infrastructure with minimal disruption to customers.

Growing up for me went a little something like this. All three of my sisters and I shared a king size bed in the attic of a rental house off 17th & Dorcas. In the mornings we would wake up to mom’s chorizo and tortillas on the stove. In the background you could hear Telemundo, a Spanish channel, on the television. Being that I was one of four siblings Birthday parties came often, and were celebrated with lots of carne asada, jugo for the kids, piñata’s, guacamole and lots of beer and music for the adults. These parties were huge and went all night long. I guess you can say this was the Hispanic traditional way to throw a kid’s birthday party. Growing up biracial, and multi-cultural Mexican- American, our primary language in our home when we were younger was Spanish.

I was talking with my brother about how terrified and nervous we both felt. Everything was new for us and he told me, “I hope everything works out and we can make new friends”. We felt wear and silly. We didn’t know nobody and we missed our old friends and our country. When we boarded the bus we saw new people happy for their return to school. We listened children talking and laughing with their friends. When we entered our first class the others looked at us weird, they made us feel uncomfortable. At the end of the day it was difficult for us to return home, because we had been given the wrong bus number; But finally we arrived to our house we felt happy because the first day of school was a test passed.

Growing up as an African-American male, conceptualizing how I am perceived and who I wanted to be was a daily burden. Always being told to stand, look, speak and act in a specific way in order to not be viewed as a threat and to be successful rang in my ears each day I woke up until it became apart of my life. Being that I was raised on the south-side of Richmond, I was brought up around my fellow black children, however, I was sheltered away from understanding how they lived their life in order to keep me veering towards this clear-cut and defined persona.

Before I took this class, if you had asked me to give you in my own words what I thought culture meant, I wouldn't of been able to answer. Today culture to me is identified by things that vary from the food you eat, the music you listen to, and things that influence you to be who you are today. Like me, today some of the biggest cultural influences that have shaped me to be who I am today are hockey, friends and family.

To truly understand one’s perspective of politics one must see what someone has already seen and hear what someone has already heard, in which they must be the same. Throughout my my life I have heard and seen many things and formed a deeper understanding of certain topics based on these experiences. With my experiences, I began to further my understanding of what I have seen and learned. Through this I found my politics, my ideals, my beliefs, and the very wings which let me soar beyond my experiences in search of understanding more. These experiences have led me to what I believe to be the role of the government and the economy, and is why I have chosen to be an independent in elections.

Taking this class has had a profound impact on me. I have learned how to properly study for a college class. Also, I learned how to effectively communicate and reach out to my professor. This was my first college course which gave me a learning experience about psychology and myself as a student. I have learned how to manage my time, study in ways that are better for me, and focus on the task in front of me. I have enjoyed taking this course overall as I have met my professor, visited campus, and may take more courses at Millersville since I have learned what taking a college course is like. Even though I learned about Psychology throughout this course, I also learned about myself as a student. I learn more effectively in a classroom rather than online, I needed better time management, and to reach out and ask for help. I have also learned that challenging work pays off because when I was struggling, I made sure to take extra credit opportunities which at this point should bring my grade up by at least one letter grade to a B. Taking this class taught me more than just psychology. I learned that I want to go to Millersville and take more classes now that I know how to study and manage my time more effectively.

From Brothers, Cousins, Uncles, Grandparents, and dear friends, I come from a line of servicemen. Whether it is Firemen, Policemen, Marines, Army soldiers, all of these men were impeccably brave. Even though some without combat, I still believe what they did takes an attitude not much people have. While observing them all throughout the years, I noticed how much being a part of their branch means to them. Though they knew, I had no idea why they valued this so much. My brother, 18 now, will leave for the Marines June 26th, this means giving up his whole college life and a small, but important, portion of his life. When he gets back he will no longer be a growing young man. When he finally returns home, he will be the age of around 23-24. And still why do they all do this.

Over the first semester of my college career, I have written four papers in my General Studies Writing Class. The class started out with a Literacy Narrative, where I wrote about my past writing, and how I have improved throughout high school. The next paper was a book evaluation. It was over Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance. It was the common read for the incoming freshman this year at Bowling Green State University, so it was a book everyone in our class had been exposed to before hand. The next two dealt with education, both public and higher. We analyzed what the “point” of education is, and also whether liberal arts education was better than job training schools. These four papers are unlike most that I had written in high school, so it challenged me to think more critically and challenge many of my own opinions. It has given me a new perspective of many ideas, and even writing in general.

Could you imagine a world where everyone was the exact same? “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way” (Vonnegut, 38). The 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments have been passed, and everyone is officially equal. Everyone is absolutely average and we all have similar lives. It is quite boring if you ask me. I am sure if you had the same old routine every day, you would get sick of it too. There isn’t any diversity and I can’t do anything about it or else it is “two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine”(Vonnegut, 40).

Many decisions, monumental as well as minuscule, are made throughout a lifetime. Decisions can lead to the luxurious Hollywood Hills or the local state penitentiary. These decisions will mold our ever fleeting lives into legendary masterpieces or into unforgiving regret. With such an abundance of decisions, they are easily taken for granite. That being stated, there are decisions that leave an everlasting mark to never be forgotten.

During this lesson, the students will be focusing on building their emotional intelligence. The students will learn about the concept of perseverance and will work on their empathy and interpersonal skills. My hope is that the students are able to start thinking and building on personal strategies pertaining to these concepts so that they will be able to use these strategies throughout their daily lives. I want the students to understand importance of expressing their emotions, working together, and never giving up. During this unit, I would like to explore how the impact of integrating dramatic activities will help students to form a deeper understanding of the concepts being discussed in the lesson. In addition, I am interested to see the effect that implementing the art of drama has on the students and the way that they view not only themselves, but also the community as a whole. Through the use of dramatic activities such as covering the space, tableaux’s, total physical response, two corners and role-playing the students will be able to look at the story from different perspectives, express their emotions as well as learn more about their peers’ thoughts on the subject matter. These activities will also encourage the students to think deeply and use their background knowledge to form connections between the story, characters and their own lives. Throughout this process the students will be actively involved and engaged, which will help them to fully comprehend the

I feel that there is a great divide within my life at its current point. I live in two different spaces depending on the time, and while they are a great distance from each other geographically, they are at an even greater distance culturally. I grew up in a small town in New York State that was majority conservative and I now live on a college campus that is extremely liberal. Before I arrived at college I felt that I had already grasped an understanding of my various privileges as an individual on the micro level. However, being here and having to face them head-on through the meso level Swarthmore community is a completely different experience. Because I identify as a pansexual, neuroatypical woman there are certain power structures such as patriarchy and heteronormativity that I tend to concern myself more with. However, despite my various privileges (or perhaps because of them), I should focus an equal amount of attention on those power structures that benefit me. It would be foolish and hypocritical of me to call out men or heterosexuals to fight against their own privileges without in turn doing the same of my own. Therefore I would like to reflect on those privileges in order to better understand how they interact in my daily life on the micro, meso, and macro levels in order to better understand myself and to “think not only beyond privilege, but beyond the sense of self that claims privilege.”

To be sure, John, I could never hope to sum up this entire experience in a hundred pages, let alone one or two. That said, this paper will center on the dangers of cliche´, staying in your own lane, and continuous improvement. Despite their seemingly innocuous nature, these particular topics are fundamental aspects of learning any art and cannot be stressed too greatly.

Throughout society, there are many different workplace environments in which one has interactions with daily. It may be that they are working in this specific workplace, thus, they experience it in more depth, or on the contrary, they may be interacting with a workplace where they aren’t doing any work. For instance, many people have 9-5 jobs. After being in their workplace all day, they have a better overview of how this workplace functions, and may notice some things that aren’t so positive. However, this doesn’t just end when a person leaves their specific workplace. Many people will meet up with friends or family for dinner or drinks when their long day of work is over. Now they are entering a workplace, where although they aren’t working, they can still notice the different behaviours shown within the environment they are in.