Essay about Self-Reflection: Writing Composition

Hays (2008) discussed privilege and biases based on culture and how these privileges and biases can affect a therapist’s work. Having a healthy understanding of self-identity can help understand the role of privilege and biases. In order to help self-reflect, Hays (2008) presented the ADDRESSING model which includes age, disability (born with), disability (acquired), religion, ethnicity/race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, indigenous status, nationality, and gender. This ADDRESSING model will be applied in this paper.

The areas of productiveness in this session for me included the paraphrasing and minimal encouragers. Throughout this session I felt that my paraphrasing was clear and concise. It allowed the client to think about what he had said, while being able to provide me with feedback and allowed for the conversation to flow naturally.

On Sunday, December 3, 2017, I delivered my first oral presentation on Janette, a peer in my Communicating Effectively course at Manhattanville College. The objective of the project was to familiarize yourself with a classmate, ask/answer questions provided by Professor Brosnan, and then share the knowledge you gained about the individual in a two-minute presentation. The presentation was required to introduce the classmate, what graduate program they are pursuing, why he/she is in the program, their long-term career goal(s), current occupation, favorite class, and an interesting fun fact. The oral presentations were done in the classroom without any visual aid, allowing you to use notes if preferred. By analyzing my 1 minute and 25 second presentation using the “7 Step Presentation Process” I uncovered my strengths and weaknesses as a presenter.

The College of Charleston was my preferred college out of the colleges I applied to. A majority of the time this was a good choice. Then there are times when part of me thinks attending a different college would have been a better idea. Then again, it is only the first semester of my freshman year. Freshman year has a handful of requirements for classes, including the First Year Experience and the seminar that goes with it and many other general education courses. There were a good many choices to choose from for my First Year Experience class and The Gullah Community: Ethnographic Research in Gender and Identity was the one that stood out to me the most.

Although personal development is an important aspect of one’s life, being able to reflect on the ground covered plays a more critical role. Primarily, self-reflection in professional development allows one to identify milestones that have been overcome, the current state of affairs and the projected targets. The identification of prevailing failures in the process provides a glimpse into what needs to be changed in order for the target to be achieved within the set timeframe. The concept of self-evaluation and self-reflection encapsulates a complex synthesis of the development of employability skills, employability engagement, and the action plan to optimize the skills and knowledge developed in the process of professional development.

Even though this class was a requirement for my nursing school, I was interested in getting to know more about my health and how to live a healthy life. After the first analysis, I had several goals and things I wanted to achieve personally, however, the three most important ones were my water intake, eating healthy which includes eating more vegetables and more protein foods since my actual intake was below the recommended intake and finally exercising more to keep fit and strong. Exercising has always been a problem for me because I always think am healthy because of my size and weight, but I have had several incidences where I have been told by my doctor to exercise, so this class was an eye opener for me since I read a lot about exercise but was feeling lazy to start and kept procrastinating.

Having the opportunity to work with our client on home modifications over the past month was an enlightening experience. Not only did we learn how to implement contextual interventions, we also were given the opportunity to practice building rapport, administering assessments (COPM and SAFER-HOME), and developing our first evaluation report. Amongst this learning experience, the first step to making this summer fieldwork successful was developing rapport with our client, B.K. As learned in our previous fieldworks, developing a trusting, partnered relationship is key to creating a successful experience for not only you the therapist, but to assure the client receives the most benefits they can from the therapy. To build rapport with B.K., we spent our first two sessions getting to know all aspects of B.K.’s life including her work, play and leisure interests, ADL and IADL performances, social participation techniques and educational background.

As an International student, writing course is and has always been one of the most challenging courses. However, this class helped me to improve my writing skills. The work in this portfolio demonstrates that I have used methods of analysis and evaluation of sources and argumrnts to develop critical thinking skills. Though I have made some progress in appropriate documentation and essay oragnization areas, I have work to do to come to a full understanding of grammar, mechanics and sufficient content use in my essays .

In five short days, six strangers underwent an intense, time constrained, decision heavy experience that challenged our thinking. Throughout the Foundations of Teamwork and Leadership course, I learned several concepts about leadership and teamwork that have strengthened the foundation for my learning team to operate as a more cohesive unit. From redefining our team culture to uncovering how to handle assumptions, there were numerous situations that allowed for intelligent failure to occur in a low-risk and familiar environment. In the following paragraphs, I will shed light into a few of my findings.

The activities I completed during the course of this semester expanded my knowledge on teaching towards equity and diversity. Assignments such as the autobiographical essay and cultural experience report gave me an opportunity to document the things that I learned and will influence my performance as a future educator. Working with a group to explain our assigned part of the RME and traveling to Paterson for our community study report exposed me to different perspectives on how I want to identify as a teacher in the future. Learning how to apply diverse forms of literature such as the haiku showed me how to include diverse forms of learning into my class. The experiences from class developed my awareness and understanding of truly teaching

This semester, when our class discussed self awareness and taking charge of our health, I did not think that I needed to set it as a priority. However, as I went through the following weeks of school, I began to reflect on how my tendency to overthink simple things and replay my mistakes makes me prone to stress and anxiety. I’m starting to understand that prioritizing self-care does not interfere with my work but that it actually allows me to be a more efficient student. In addition to daily self-care, I also need to improve my long-term planning. Although I invest a lot of time and effort into my day-to-day school work, I have to remind myself to take time to work on my academic planning and career goals.

For the past three years, my learning has been predominately influenced by post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. During my AS studies, my attendance in school dropped to 55%. Anxiety prevented me from taking part in: sleepovers, shopping and school trips, group work at school, birthday parties and holidays and as a result, it made me feel excluded from my peers, both academically and socially. However, throughout A-Level I received cognitive-behavioural therapy, which brought an understanding to my triggers. Mindfulness has also helped to alter my thought process and behaviour by teaching me how to zone out and put information into context.

During the course of the quarter, I feel that I have progressed somewhat. I've gained a lot of knowledge on rhetorical strategies and how to present arguments effectively. In the writings I have written, I feel that each writing works towards meeting the course goals. Logos, ethos, and pathos were strategies and ideas we were introduced to (if not already in the past) and were built upon throughout the quarter. The knowledge gained over the course of the quarter weren't only those three types of appeals. Rhetorical strategies like proposals helped reinforce the course and using rhetorical analysis in different situations have become easier throughout the quarter. I believe that I have made sufficient progress towards becoming a better

To dive into this idea further, I decided it would be beneficial to get to know myself better and the desires God has placed within my heart through the completion of two personal reflection exercises. One of these two exercises required my response to the question, “If you could convince someone to pay you to do what you love, what would you be doing? What might this mean for your vocation(s)?” In answering this question, I started to wonder about my aspiration to be a chemist (currently, leaning towards forensics chemistry). I responded:

The interpretation of life as a game, a constant quest for survival, full of demands one is summoned to endure, and that one may not quit playing, has been vastly used by the entertainment industry. That is, thanks to its rentability and ease to grow in empathy with the spectator, over his inner desire to leave the natural world and follow the hero’s archetype, or perhaps, that used to be my condescending mindset. But, if there was something I came to learn from the following episode, which the media indeed doesn't take in account, was the fragility of the subject matter and the boundaries of one’s ability to act upon his actions and consequent readiness to brace for the aftermath.