Best Self Reflection Essay

What personal and professional strengths do you have that you can use and build on to create helping relationships with your clients?

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.

Enrolling to Heritage University I wasn’t sure what to expect. While obtaining my Associate of Arts degree at Yakima Valley Community College my ultimate goal was to become a social worker. Although, towards the last quarter at YVCC I realized that I was not passionate enough to continue that career pathway. Transferring to Heritage I looked into the Business program. Now, I will be graduating with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration with a concentration on Entrepreneur. During my junior year I realized I wanted to concentrate in marketing but was not completely sure, so taking a internship with the Heritage University’s Academic Skills Center was a great opportunity to put into place my interest for marketing.

In what ways are the data gathered from others (i.e. the data that serve as the basis of your Reflected Best Self Portrait) similar or different from your own perceptions of your best self?

This portfolio shows how I have grown as both a reader and a writer; enhancing my research skills and be able to convey them in my own words. As a reader and researcher, I was able to find the evidence through research I was looking for to support my argument. When I start off writing, I first start to write by simply answering the questions, then I slowly add on to those answers furthering my statements. By going through my own notes, evidence, even personal experience to provide a stronger argument. I also really rely on my reader's interest, bringing up interesting facts about the topic that many might not know to keep my readers attention. I also ensure these interesting facts stay on topic, but are interesting enough for the reader to

A successful leader leverages their personal strengths and uses the knowledge of their weaknesses to improve and evolve, treating their development as a learning process rather than something set in stone. Self reflection is often focused on identifying and eliminating our weaknesses, however the vital key to any enduring garden is not trimming dead leaves and exterminating weeds. Instead, it is by watering the soil and carefully tending to it that the flowers can bloom. In the same way, we must cultivate our strengths. Although our weaknesses offer insight into ourselves, capitalizing on our strengths and understanding our talents allows us to develop the skills we need to become strong and effective leaders. The Reflected Best Self Exercise helps to facilitate the development of this awareness by helping individuals determine common themes and trends in their behavior with feedback gathered from friends, family coworkers, teachers, and more.

One of my biggest strengths is working well under a lot of stress and pressure. The more commitments I have, the better I seem to work. Being an RA, being on CAB exec board and being in other clubs around campus forces me to have deadlines and a routine that I stick to every day. Having free time is something I do not cope well with because I am used to always moving and working so if free time is given I have to use that time for something productive. I am not one of those students who can watch Netflix during the semester because if I am doing that then I know I am doing something wrong. If I am lucky enough to be picked for SRA next year, and have CAB, it will help me create a good routine for my day to day life which then enables me to get my work in on time. A thought one may have, though, is if I have too much on my plate, my work will suffer and not be as best as it can be, but, being a perfectionist, I refuse to submit work I am genuinely proud of which allows my work to never suffer.

Throughout this school year I learned a lot about myself pertaining to who I am as a person and what I need to work on to push myself harder to achieve the goals I have set for myself. Being in Ap language taught me that every teacher isn’t going to give you an easy A, you’ll face difficult challenges and obstacles and you can’t procrastinate forever. However, I persisted the whole year and now determined to make newly changes to me and my life.

Once this course had commenced, I came up with the idea of painting a person’s reflection to represent the theme of self-image. Throughout the process of experimenting with different types of paint, I decided to work closely with watercolour as it was a media that I found enjoyable. I aimed for an experience where I developed the knowledge of working with watercolour, which became more realistic through researching the artists, John Lovett, Roisin Cure and David Stickel. Through investigating, it was explored how the use of different techniques such as; using bright colours, can cause the viewer to have an emotional response. These artists had a large impact on the

The second to last essay type we wrote this year were personal essays, which were a blend of reflection, analysis, and persuasion. The first was about A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and the second was about The Odyssey. The purpose of writing this kind of essay is to develop a thesis, which “probes” the theme of an issue or text. While writing these essays, I learned to “probe” and question the meanings of a certain issue. I also learned important techniques and lessons for integrating multiple sources, such as a book, philosophy, or personal experience. A sentence that I feel used both personal experience and historical evidence was in my first paper, where I state: “If not hero had ever thought to allow women’s rights to education so long ago, I would never have written this essay in the first place.” This sentence, I felt, was a personal sentence yet still upheld my thesis. Another sentence I felt was well crafted was in my Odysseus essay, where I state: “Because we can shut our mouths when we want to beg. Because holding onto the world for what it’s worth makes you human again. Because we can drop our hand.” This sentence, to me, sums up my entire paper while still alluding to an earlier metaphor, which aided me in “showing” my ideas. Altogether, it was difficult to balance my ‘showing’ and my personal essay, as a large part of a personal essay includes taking from multiple sources. Explaining several sources while still connecting it to a thesis is complicated,

“I liked the poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ for a lot of reasons,” was how I started my first writing assignment of this course, and now it is how I am starting for last writing assignment; but for different reasons. In the beginning of this class, my knowledge and understanding of writing was very limited. Fortunately, I did not submit my assignment with such an uninteresting and bland hook, but this shows the tremendous growth I was able to experience as a writer as a result of this course. Throughout the course I have been able to learn and understand the components of a strong written piece, and have hence learned to create intriguing hooks, a strong body that contains vivid descriptions, imagery, and literary devices (similes, onomatopoeia, and metaphors, etc.) and a satisfying conclusion.

As I reflect back on the past18 years, I am reminded of the many experiences and various people that have influenced me and helped mold and shape my views on education and learning. Many great teachers and coaches have all helped instill in me a love for learning. Difficult teachers, unfair coaches and challenging relationships with peers have helped me develop the desire to prove myself and to do my best to rise above and to learn in spite of challenges. Instances of cheating, injustice, apathy and school politics could have possibly stolen my desire to learn and grow. Instead these things have driven me to educate myself in order to bring about change and provide opportunities to do something more with my life.

5) For 24 years as STE 13 /11 LW, I have demonstrated exceptional and effective communication skills in many projects where I have made public presentations in front of City Councils and in public meetings. These public meetings included Senator’s representatives, hotel and business associations. As and SRE I presented I-15 Managed lanes Middle to the community on several occasions. In addition, I have also represented Ct to governmental and other representatives that visited my project, including the Governor of California, a Japanese delegation, the media, and SDSU engineering students. I successfully served as an expert witness in several instances and worked with State’s attorneys and successfully defended Ct in a $ 15 million tort case. My writing, oral communication, and analytical skills were successfully demonstrated in my claims reports and oral presentations that clearly presented Ct’s side, resulting in the DRB ruling in Ct favor 90% of the time. I have served as the D11 Design’s representative in the Construction/Design joint task force to improve the quality of plans, communication, coordination, and lesson learned with Construction. I have also conducted and participated many preconstruction, PDT, CR, STM, status meetings the majority of D11 and I-5 CM/GC Corridor projects. As STE for 6 years, I have led a Statewide CTAC quarterly meetings where HQs CADD and IT get updated on the districts' training and equipment deployment efforts, challenges, and successes. I

It’s my first week. I’m stressed, I’m anxious, I’m overwhelmed. Am I in over my head? I can’t help but think I don’t belong here, that I’ve made a mistake. It’s freshman year, and I’m two days in. I was so eager to get here, and after only two days of class, I start doubting myself. Know the feeling? I couldn’t wait to get away from home, I was ready for this, I could taste the freedom. And yet, here I am, jolted into self-reflection, questioning if I was truly ready. I had no idea what I wanted to study, what career I wanted to pursue, or even how to make it through the next week. My college transition truly tested my perseverance and resilience, however, it all paid off when I stepped foot in my first psychology classroom.

“Self- awareness doesn’t stop you from making mistakes, it allows you to learn from them”. Self-reflection is an important factor in improving oneself. In the past, the essays that I have written have mainly received positive feedback. Despite this, there is still much room for improvement in my writing. Earlier in the semester, I was assigned an essay for my chemistry lab class. We were instructed to watch a video about Dr. Stephen Hawking’s theory on the origin of the universe and then to summarize the video in a 500-word essay. In my opinion, the essay I wrote titled “Dr. Hawking’s Origin of the Universe” was merely average. Although there were some very strong points made throughout the essay, it can be improved on in many other areas. My strengths in this assignment were my use of accelerated vocabulary and the essay’s strong conclusion. The weaknesses of my essay were the vague nature of my explanations in addition to my lack of a works cited page.