Final Reflection Essay

This semester of college was my first year of college, meaning it was my first semester I would be taking, and it all started with my English class. Freshman year of school is always the hardest year, students go from being at the top of the schools or being “top dogs” to being back to the bottom of the food chain. With this transition a lot of skills needed to be learned in order for me to be successful in college. A lot of these skills I learned in English class, learning time management, how to properly critique, different writing styles, and how to properly revise my work.

Coming into college I was always told that attending classes is something that the teacher isn’t going to make you do, but it is something that you yourself will have to make yourself do. My attendance throughout my first semester was nearly perfect, and thankfully so. Only missing a couple days caused me to fall behind in classes due to college constantly moving without remorse for those left behind. This is due to the amount of in class work that is done and the amount that is graded. This includes group work, group discussions, writing exercises, peer reviewing, and more. Missing these crucial in class work stopped me from being able to learn, and caused me to have to play catchup for the next week. Almost every assignment we do in class needed my participation in order to gain a deeper understanding of the topic at hand. In class assignments were not the only schoolwork that needed to be done, there was homework and quizzes that needed my attention. Personally doing school work at home has always been beneficial to me, it causes greater productivity and time management and so with all of the homework I could put 110 percent into doing it. With the split between going to school and doing work there and also doing homework back at home one of the major things I had to learn was how to manage my time better. Procrastination wasn’t allowed anymore if I were to procrastinate then work wouldn’t get done and then I would fall behind and end up having to drop my classes. I used to put off all of my school work to the last second, but this is not possible in college. I noticed that doing homework as soon as I got home actually furthered my knowledge on the topic possibly due to the information being fresh in my brain. In addition to this double checking my work furthered my understanding on the topic at hand. Chiefly, double checking or revising my essays caused me to notice all of the silly mistakes I make making it so in my future writings I don’t make those mistakes and ultimately become a better writer because of it. One of my personal best writing works to this day would have to be my argumentative essay that I wrote in English class. It made me come to the realization that not only was my word choice slowly becoming greater but also my in text citations were close to perfection for the first time in my writing career. What I have noticed not just in the argumentative essay but in all of my writing work is that my grammar needs some definite improvement. I have run on sentences a lot, grammar issues, and how I structure some sentences needs to improve as well. The three main essays that I noticed in these flaws also taught me numerous lessons in writing. In my personal essay I wrote this “maybe if I had gone to a different school then these changes wouldn’t have happened, but they did and because of them I can look back on them and realize that change can be good in the long run”. My personal essay taught me how to look back on my past and evaluate myself. How to remember how I felt back then and to note how far I have come in life. In my Rhetorical Analysis essay I learned how to properly identify ethos, pathos, and logos. “From the beginning of the article, we can tell that it’s going to be a very credible source and appeal to ethos to support his argument”, this is a quote from my rhetorical essay that shows how I can identify ethos, logos, and pathos. Despite this, my understanding of ethos, logos, and pathos is still not up to par with others and I wish that I could’ve had more instruction on it. Finally in my argumentative essay I learned how to not only defend my viewpoint on a topic but to also explain the opposing viewpoint. In this quote I am able to put myself in the opposing view and successfully explain it “If federal marijuana legalization was enacted Americans could see an increase in the amount of money spent on social costs”. All in all my college experience so far has made me realize that I am an adult now and taking responsibility for my actions is imperative.

I started this semester not knowing what to expect, I was simply a scared freshman being introduced to a much bigger world that I have never experienced. And because of this I had numerous obstacles to overcome, and ultimately I have become a better student. To conclude my last English essay I would have to say that this class has made me a better writer and made me realize that not only am I ready for any college essay that is thrown at me, but I also realize that I can overcome any obstacle in my path.