As this semester comes to the end, I can’t help but compare it to the last semester’s end and final week. By comparing the two semesters I can see how much growth I have made. There is a great contrast between the two semesters and I’m much happier now. I am much closer to many of my goals I want to achieve in college: finding the right major for me, finding myself, making lifetime friends, and becoming independent from my parents.
Experience as Evidence
I remember a while ago reading in Reflective Writing the section on “Reflection for Career Planning.” This section shares how you can use the information in that book and apply it to real world situations. Specifically, it included improving job applications, sharing the need for “evidence” in an application or interview. Until reading this, I didn’t fully realize how experience isn’t just an item that looks good on a resume, but how it can provide evidence of whether someone fits certain qualities that an employer is looking for.
I fully understood what the little green book was talking about when I went on a research interview a few weeks ago. When looking through the research on the internet, the site noted that qualities they look for included “experience and comfort interacting with children” and “willingness to work as part of a research team.” Through reading Reflective Writing, I realized that it was not enough to simply say that I love children and am a team player; I needed evidence. As Reflective Writing claims, my “evidence” was my experience; during the interview I provided specific example of when I was part of a team, running track and working in a restaurant, as well as examples of when I worked with children. Furthermore, as Reflective Writing suggests, I discussed how these experiences shaped me to be a better team player and want to work with children more. I realized that this is what Reflective Writing means when it says, “through examples you justify your claims.” Continue reading “Experience as Evidence”
Something I’ve Noticed
Dr. McCoy used to be the sole facilitator of the conversation in our classroom, but as the semester ends the students have taken the reigns. Now, class discussions are partially student run. Throughout the semester we have become comfortable with each other and are better at interpreting and responding to each other’s ideas. We have made great improvement, but there is one thing that I noticed that is bizarre. Most of the class won’t start talking until Dr. McCoy leaves the room. Why are we waiting for our professor to leave?
Learning for a lifetime
The transition from high school to college was a more significant one than I expected. Taking college courses and being in college are definitely two different things. I realized that way more is expected of you in college and if you submit work that is below par, then professors certainly have little to no sympathy for you. There are not usually second chances given and Professors are right to do so, there is a standard and there is no room for careless mistakes. There is far more work you must put in as an individual and your work is held to a higher standard.
In high school, I had always considered myself “fine.” Good grades without editing much or using WriteLab were easy. I rarely edited in fact, rarely read my work aloud to check it over. In college, I have learned the importance of editing. A part of me felt scared of editing, it’s a daunting process. Writing an essay itself feels like a marathon so editing after seemed to exhausting and in high school, it was often unnecessary. But as we have discussed, writing is a process. It is not a one step method and then you are magically done. It is multiple steps that may be repeated over and over, it is a learning process. So I have come to learn I was wrong. I believed I acquired all my writing skills from high school and that was enough to sustain me for the next four years and beyond. I attempted to stunt my growth before I really began to grow as a writer. The experiences from college have only helped me grow not only as a writer but as an individual. This is a lesson to never stop growing, changing and learning. When I anticipate I know it “all” or have learned it “all” I am not now naive enough to believe it. True education and continuous growth throughout your lifetime.
Developing Time Management Skills in a University Setting
“The early bird catches the worm” is a common phrase I’ve heard throughout my life. The meaning of this phrase can be interpreted by many that getting an earlier start will allow one to be more successful. As the semester comes to an end, I have realized how important time is and this phrase could not be more significant. The semester went by quick and I’ve learned it is easier to say you’re going to complete a task, than actually completing a task. I have always been organized in life, but as we know life doesn’t go as planned. Continue reading “Developing Time Management Skills in a University Setting”
Schoolhouse Rock Has Not Trained Me Well
Grammar and punctuation, are always things that have confused me yet are a crucial part in the way that we write. I haven’t had a real lesson in grammar or punctuation lesson since the sixth grade. We would watch the Schoolhouse Rock videos and that was realistically the extent of the grammar lessons that I received in grade school. I was only given a very brief lesson on punctuation as well. Punctuation I think some teachers through grade school didn’t really think to teach because there are so many tools within apps like Microsoft word that could help us with that. The level of understanding grammar, punctuation and usage that I am expected to be at is not where I am. We are already expected to know all these things before we even get to college. Therefore, there are no formal lessons on grammar or punctuation at the higher levels.
It has always been something that I struggled with because I haven’t had much experience with it. Whenever I would get papers back, there wouldn’t be many comments about grammar and punctuation, but I would still get a 4/5 on the rubric for that section without even knowing what I did wrong. I understand that it’s a lot to focus on but it’s something that I need to know how to do. Dr. McCoy commented on my previous blog post about my specific punctuation she mentions my excessive use of commas, the use of semicolons that weren’t particularly correct and certain homonyms that were used incorrectly. The homonyms were more of a lack of proofreading rather than a lack of knowledge. However, with the punctuation, I have no idea what I’m doing. She also posed the question of “Are these things a matter of needing to acquire/deepen skills? A matter of proofreading? Of needing a mini-lesson on punctuation and spelling?…These are little things—why am I picking on them now?” To answer her question, she is picking on these little things now because I have evolved with the structure of my writing and have improved immensely (or at least I think so) on the solidification of my ideas. Now that I have grown more confident in those things with my writing, this is the next thing that I need to focus on. Coincidentally, when Dr. McCoy made the comment about this pattern in my writing, I have reached the modules of INTD starting to focus on grammar, usage and punctuation.
After completing these three modules, I learned things that I should have learned way before these modules. Like the noun (or phrase) that a pronoun is replacing is called an antecedent. Also, some ways that I use grammar are incorrect and I had no idea. For example, I know that I change the tense that I write in a lot, but I can never seem to catch it when I’m proofreading. There is also an order with adjectives that I had no idea about. The module tells us that the order is, “Determiner, opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, and purpose.” When using adjectives of the same category, they should be separated by a comma. I liked the comparison that was made for starting sentences with conjunctions: the sentence or sentence fragment that starts with the conjunction is the ladder and a ladder can’t stand on its own therefore, it needs a tree to lean on. This tree is another sentence fragment.
The punctuation module is the more important one for me. I have more knowledge with grammar than I do with punctuation. I understand that punctuation is difficult as well as grammar, but like I mentioned before, I do not have a lot of knowledge on punctuation. I think the reason that punctuation is so hard for me is that because when people talk, you don’t hear punctuation. In her comments, Dr. McCoy mentioned what is called a comma splice? Before completing the module, I didn’t know what that was. She also mentioned that I did not use semicolons properly. Honestly, I don’t know how to use them. I just used it because I’ve seen other people use them.
During the modules I found things with punctuation that I didn’t know: 1. If you are not starting a new sentence and using a transition word, you must use a semicolon before that word. 2. There is such thing as a serial comma…a serial comma is a comma that comes before the word and when listing things that consists of three or more things. 3. Commas are also not supposed to be (between the subject and verb of a sentence, after any number, before and preposition, and before any conjunction). 4. Semicolons and colons are not interchangeable. Semicolons can be used when separating things in a list when those items already have commas. Whereas colons are used after complete sentences and to formulate lists.
Although I completed these modules, my confidence with grammar and punctuation is still very low. We’ve talked about old habits and previous training that has come back to haunt us in our writing but with punctuation and grammar, I have very little previous training which has left me with no bad habits to break. But my ignorance is what has set me back.
A Goal Achieved
In the latter part of yesterday’s class I was reading Jessica’s blog post Our Progress, and was immediately reminded of something that Dr. McCoy has said a few times in recent weeks: “My goal is to become irrelevant by the end of the semester”. The first time she said this, I do remember thinking, initially, that her statement was quite an odd thing to say, especially coming from a professor. Of course, when she elaborated on what exactly she meant, I realized it made perfect sense. It was her goal that by the end of the semester, we would no longer require her assistance to complete the various writing projects assigned to us. I believe that Dr. McCoy has been successful in achieving her goal, as we have done a good amount of work without her holding our hand along the way. As Jessica pointed out, Dr. McCoy left on a business trip to England and we still held a productive class, and more recently she has been leaving the room to encourage us to work solely within our groups.
I pondered how this idea of our professor preparing us to work without her fit into the framework of an academic partnership. The conclusion I came to was that Dr. McCoy has crafted a partnership that differs from most others students enter into. Generally, an academic partnership, especially in a freshman-level course, consists of the professor imparting knowledge to the students, and the students listen and are tested on the material. Dr. McCoy, on the other hand, has created a different type of partnership, one in which she instructs her students in the strategies they need to complete the assignments without her constant involvement. The former partnership is often beneficial for the classes in which it is employed, but for Dr. McCoy’s course, the partnership present is probably the best way to get the most out of what INTD 105 has to offer.
A Lesson to keep for a lifetime
To be completely honest, when I began this course I was not sure what to expect; I knew group work and collaboration between groups was important but I was unsure why. Of course I always cared for the importance of good relationships, it is part of the reason my major is International Relations. My love and passion to comprehend the International system and how countries work together in an international partnership and why these partnerships sometimes falter or even dissolve interested me.
I think my dream job is to work with United Nations to assist failed states so I could complete humanitarian work and work to heal some partnerships in the internal aspects of countries such as institutions and government. Part of the appeal for this class was exploring the aspects of the risks and rewards and academic partnership. In this class I have learned the value of group work from this class. I used to stray from group work, a stigma being attached to working with others and how exhausting it can be. However, I think the stigma is misguided and exaggerated. I find it to be rewarding. From our group work, I have found self-growth which is something I never expected. I never thought reading GLOBE or Geneseo’s Mission statement would ever really mean anything to me; I thought they were just frivolous statements. They have become so much more to me. I was not sure how group work could ever really benefit me but this course has taught me growth through academic partnership itself.
Parental Partnerships
As our INTD class nears the end and I continue reflecting on the semester, I’ve noticed that college has changed my partnership with two very important people: my parents.
To be honest, I did not think the transition from life at home to college would be too challenging. I’ve always been a very independent person; I hate asking for help. So, I was surprised when I found myself calling my parents the very first week of school, asking how to do something as simple as laundry. Even reminding myself to go eat three meals a day was hard; at home food was just there. Instead of walking to the dining hall, I simply walked over to the fridge. I started talking to my parents weekly, but it was the same annoying questions I would receive after high school every day—“how was school?” and “was practice hard?” being their favorites. It wasn’t until our second semester here that I noticed our relationship was different.
I knew that entering college brought me into an agreement with Geneseo, in which I must uphold certain expectations as a student, in exchange for an education. However, I didn’t know that the time away from home would cause me to see my parents from a new perspective. When they visit and we discuss my life at college, I realize they were once college students too. They had to figure out how to do laundry, love the questionable dining hall food, and learn a new meaning of the word “independence.” It’s strange to think of them as naive, young students like myself. Continue reading “Parental Partnerships”
The Risks and Rewards of Leaving Home
I recall when in my senior year of high school when all my classmates were committing to college. All of my closest friends had decided, based on certain circumstances, that they had to stay home on Long Island. In fact, a lot of graduating class decided leaving familiar Long Island was too much to bear so many attended colleges near home. Yet, I was determined to leave my town because I was sure I could not grow and really challenge myself without leaving the familiarity I relied on. I knew Geneseo was the right place for this, especially with GLOBE ambitiously seeking to create a “holistic student experience.”