Final Reflection

My first semester was filled with ups and downs, forgetting to do assignments, handing in assignments late, then finally catching up. I was lost and was scared to ask for help so I decided to take it on myself. I finally became familiar with the class near the end which made it a little overwhelming when it came to completing assignments but I got to them and I can proudly say that I am sitting here almost finished with my first semester of college. I learned so much from this class, every unit I learned something new whether it be about myself or picking up a new skill I was always learning. In unit one when we did our Language and Literacy Narratives. I decided to write about learning English in preschool. My goal for this unit was to start off college right, get a good grade on the assignment and have things flow smoothly. The complete opposite happened and I completely forgot to turn in the final essay. That was a negative from that unit but a positive was writing about myself. It made me realize how important being bilingual was. I put myself in the shoes of people like my father who have trouble speaking English and usually get played out in the world because people know they cannot defend themselves in english. For the second unit (The discovery essay) I went a different route. I decided to do research on the effect of social media on the adolescent mind. During that unit I noticed my school work was being affected by my phone usage. The more I slacked the more that the work would pile on and it created an immense amount of stress that could have been prevented. During my research I found out how much social media can deprive you of sleep and your time, one of the topics in my essay is sleep depravation and how negative it is on your health both mental and physical, it can cause health issues such as high blood pressure and diabetes and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. This essay really made my research skills a lot stronger. In my first draft I barely had any sources, but after my peer review and my one on one meeting with the professor I made it my mission to find good, informative and credible sources that would help me improve my knowledge of the effects of social media. For my final essay I used a lot of sources from the CCNY library. This was very beneficial because It made my research skills stronger and that is an important skill that I need to use throughout my entire college career. The third unit the Multimodal Creative Project was kind of lackluster for me, I went the easy route with a short story and suicide note because of at home issues that I will not discuss here but I needed something easy to present and turn in. I still believe it was a good attempt at the assignment but definitely not my best work. I wish I could have incorporated my artistic and creative skills into the assignment but I did not and I’m ok with it. Presenting was nerve racking for me even though I spent a whole semester seeing my classmates i tend to get nervous when speaking out to a crowd, but once it was over i felt good and I felt that everyone received the message I was trying to spread which was mental health is important and should not be affected by small insignificant things such as social media and others opinions. If this semester taught me anything about myself it is that I need to time manage better, I am not only taking 1 class I am taking 5 or 6 depending the year and it will always be that way so I need to learn very quickly how to manage all my classes so that they do not all pile up and create a disaster. I also learned that I work very well and am very productive when facing immense pressure. I have completed assignments 2 hours before they are due and have gotten a good grade on them. But the stress is not worth it so I plan on using my time wisely and finishing assignments up quickly before the actual due date so that I am not stressed. My goal at the beginning of the semester was to pick up little lessons as I went through these couple of months. I learned various lessons that will follow me throughout my entire life and will most definitely be passed around and down to friends and family so that they too know how to handle situations that I previously went through. 

 

Thank You for an amazing first semester 

Sincerely’, Victor Aquino