Fye Reflection

Fear and anxiety plagued my mind during this transition, however my wife and daughter kept my mind at ease. The information and instruction that was provided from the Professors at Durham Tech galvanized something deep within me. I began to strive for goals that I thought were unattainable as a naïve adolescent. Instructors encouraged me to work hard and to be persistent when it came to the immense obstacles of my course work such as giving a presentation at an honors symposium as an honors student. After countless years of self doubt and negative feelings towards education as a whole, for the first time in my life, I felt like college was an option for

Choosing to attend Spelman College as one of many decisions I have to make as a student was an easy task. Ever since I can remember, one of my biggest aspirations was to be accepted to and attend Spelman College. Through the years, Spelman women in my life have demonstrated their commitment to uplifting children, families and the community. Considering that Spelman is a liberal arts college that provides an intimate and nurturing environment, I have no doubt that it will provide the tools I need to be successful.

Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing a great inspiration to me, my mother, Stephanie Sacks, about her experience in college. She went to Evergreen State College for her baccalaureate degree. She enjoyed the vast majority of the classes she took; “All of Evergreen was sort of an extracurricular.”, she said. The one she didn’t like was a biology class. “I absolutely hated that class.”, she remembered. The room was so warm, and the lectures so boring, that she fell asleep on multiple occasions. “Thank god I didn’t go to a regular college, because I would have absolutely hated it,” She chuckled. “I hated studying things I had no interest in.” Her favorite part of college was getting to pick which classes she took, which she said, “...was

Coming into Spelman College, I had this idea about the type of Spelman woman that I wanted to become. I wanted to be an afro wearing, free spirited Spelman sister with a bullhorn in my right hand and my left hand held high over my head in a fist, but while being here, my idea of who I want to become has changed. I have been in college for a little over a month and I can proudly say that I have settled into my new home and that I love it here. I am confident in the fact that Spelman College will make me into the woman that I want to be by developing the woman that I am today.

In American society, higher education has become the standard and all over the country young people are being told just how important and necessary this extended learning is. The question is: why? Mark Edmundson, author of “Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?”, tackles this question with full-force in his essay about making the most of your college learning. Within the essay, Edmundson’s purpose is to inspire a new way of thinking for students just beginning their college education. He gives the readers a personal account of self-discovery amidst the depravity of academics, and emphasizes that this is one of the most important parts of the college experience.

I came to college knowing, that so much of what I was over the first eighteen years of my life would be put to the test. Not simply because I was a conservative, in a liberal environment, but because I would be faced with four years, in a place that was in such

In 2006 I started college because it’s what one is supposed to do after High School. It soon matured to, going to college to find myself. Where that meant experiencing a breadth of topics that captivate and inspire me to seek out answers; which hasn’t changed. Every class I took gave me new perspectives where I gained understanding to allow me to be more open, and greater insight. However, the obstacles of still being a teenager, trying to find myself, left me struggling to cope with my studies and every-day life. Forcing me to hit the pause button my student life.

Making adjustments in life, no matter the situation, always takes time. These first couple of weeks of the new semester have been challenging for me. Despite the encounters, I was still able to learn an ample amount of information that can also be perceived as life lessons. Throughout this week, I have learned that I am lucky to be born here in the United States, learned the different views of my peers, and learned that I need to be more attentive.

This is a reflective essay concerning my READ 3423.01 with Dr. Reid in the fall of 2016. As I wrap up my first semester at Texas Women’s University I am awed and thankful. I am the first person in my family to attend University. Some find this surprising because I do come from a family that has done well professionally, but that was due to grit and personalities. The fact is, I was never even spoken to about attending college while I was growing up. I believe this is because no one before me had this experience to share or encourage. The truth is I tried my hardest to not be at school from middle school on, I just wasn’t engaged in the process. Of course, there were a few teachers I connected with, like the business and history teachers, but I hated the rules and structure of the environment. I amazedly graduated with my high school class, as my friends went away to Universities I took some classes at the community college. What I found was that when I got to pick my classes I flourished. Even the classes that others said were too hard to take during summer quarter, I excelled in those as well. As life unfolded I got married, moved out of state and had two daughters. When it was time for my daughters to attend school I was pretty apprehensive about the idea of it. I opened a preschool in a mother-in-law apartment we had on our property and decided they could learn there in a small community. That preschool led to homeschooling, and large educational co-ops. I lived in a

Spelman encourages this experience. Whether through African Diaspora and the World, the push to study abroad or the Computer Science requirement, Spelman hopes to expands its student’s world view. My ultimate goal is to learn as much as possible. Dr. Burnett reiterates the end result of a Spelman education:

The future is a frightening place, and for eighteen years of your life you are encouraged to envision the most successful version of yourself, molded into the most predictive form of the future you, and given the utensils you will need to make that aspiration tangible. For eighteen years of my life I’ve been driven by my aspiration and determination to do better— to learn better, to overcome my environment, to give back to the community that raised me. I’ve strived to make a difference because, in order to be successful, your educational choices will not be the only deciding factor, rather your life choices will, too. Cheyney University has accepted my decision to be a source of change as a product of their institution, and the Keystone Honors

I knew college was going to change me in many ways. Yet, after my family and I restructured our collective and individual emotional reactivity over the three years that I was away at school, I believed my work in that department was done. I thought transiting into college was difficult, however, I found myself once again unprepared for the aftershock that rocked my family once I return from school. I left college a strong, independent, mature, and differentiated person, or at least I kind of did.

Out of the four characters in the book, I think I relate to both Hem and Haw for different reasons. I can relate to Hem because I too have been stuck in once place in my current employment because of my fear of change. I have been in a training position for over four years now and when three different supervision jobs opened up, although I applied for these jobs, I honestly did not want them. I was scared what it would be like to be a supervisor and all of the responsibilities that would come with it. I was scared of the possibility of schedule changes and that I would not be able to cope or handle whatever schedule they tried to throw at me. Although, as a trainer, I do supervise at least once employee and sometimes several, I was scared at failing if I were to try and supervise of more than one employee at once.

This semester I learned a lot about writing in English 151. It has been a roller coaster ride with these essays for me this semester. I learned step by step how to write a good essay and how to have your readers be engaged in what you’re trying to tell them. Each essay I did has taught me something valuable I can take to the next level of English. I feel as if as the semester went by I did not take my writing that seriously and that reflected in my grades I received in each essay. It made me a better student and writer and it will reflect next semester. In this essay, I will reflect on what I learned throughout this semester that you should apply in your writing when you begin English 151.

Now that I am reaching the end of my undergraduate career I feel like it’s fit to reflect on how far i’ve come and some high and low points during this time of my life. Some people may say that these four years of college are the most wonderful times of their life, and for the most part that is correct. But there is this whole other part of college life that is super stressful and even scary. During this paper I will address my personal development and how certain experiences played a role in those developments. Even though I feel like i’ve grown a lot and have developed and learned new things, I have run into some issues. Those issues being family/culture, social and emotional growth, intellectual growth, values and beliefs, citizen and community member.