Saint Louis University Reflection Essay

As UNLV Graduates its 2016 Spring class, its commencements speakers offer words of community and impact

In this class we have a credo, and in that credo there are some key words that were capitalized: Read, Think, Write, College Level, rigorously, Holistically, Learning, Safe, and Fun. Everyone has their own way of defining words, some maybe the same and some may be different but that’s ok. In this essay I am going to thoroughly and efficiently explain to you in my own words what each of these words mean to me in the context of this course.

Throughout this assignment, I worked hard for success and learned a lot from my mistakes along the way. I strongly believe that I have successfully met the criteria and accomplished the requirements for this rant. I was dressed appropriately, with no bright colors or designed shirts, to prevent any distractions whatsoever, however, I had a smart student look, which I would think is the ideal clothing for a rant topic such as mine. I maintained a steady, slow pace, and I frequently stopped moving and turned my body to the camera. I performed this at times I felt were necessary in order for the audience to understand when I am delivering a main idea or main points. “The fact is that our school washrooms are never fully clean and this really pisses me off”. This is an example of when I stopped walking and turned my body to the camera. This line is one of my main points that I wanted my audience to clearly understand. My setting was adequate and relevant to my topic (Bell High School Washrooms). In the start of my rant, I showed a school sign that displayed “Bell High School”, then I walked past the lockers of my school during my introduction. Soon after, when I was talking about girl’s washrooms, I stopped walking in front of one. Furthermore, when I was discussing the interior defects and unsanitary environment, I placed myself in a male washroom, so the audience can have not only a verbal understanding, but also a visual understanding, which I feel had an impact on how much

Prior to the beginning of my sophomore year in high school, I had already decided upon heading to pharmacy school and learning about the profession in detail before eventually graduating with a professional doctorate degree in pharmacy. Taking advantage of the Summer Scholars Advanced College Academy program offered by the local community college, I could participate in secondary dual enrollment while still in high school. Throughout the entire three years from there on out, I would typically attend high school classes in the morning and afternoon and come evening time, I would head over to the college. During my sophomore year, my brother advised to stick with 3- and 4-unit non-science courses to slowly ease myself into this new schedule. Focusing primarily on the relatively lighter breadth requirement courses, I would be endowed with the opportunity to come home, eat a snack, and complete a few homework assignments before heading to class once again but this time, at a different institution.

Doors, oceans, cities, all these different descriptions have been used by different people to describe their mind. However, my mind is a never-ending slide show, with me sitting down watching different slides constantly flash before me on the projector. Their random most of the time, but I can choose which slide goes up when I need it. However, there is one slide that sneakily gets into the projector, I don’t remember putting it there, but it always manages to get in. Whenever this slide appears, shackles come out of my chair and traps me, forces me to look at this memory. I remember it well, I was around 10 or 11, I was sitting in my room playing a board game by myself, see my sisters were always busy and I didn’t have friends to play with, so I always played by myself. Then while playing I start realizing that I'm alone, I cry while the light shines above as I play this board game by myself, with no one around, I was lonely.

I have always been a person interested with anatomy. Although, when I was younger, I was more concerned about animals (polar bears specifically) to ever take the time to learn more about ourselves. School science classes were the first time that I was actually exposed to human anatomy. From the very beginning I was fascinated. There was one organ in particular that I never wanted to stop learning about; the brain. Whenever teachers in class would stop talking about it I would immediately become slightly less interested in what they were teaching.

For the past three and a half years I have participated in the school band. In that time I’ve taken part in concert band, marching band, and jazz band. Setting up my schedule in sixth grade kicked off the adventure.

When I first walked into dual credit composition at the beginning of the year, I wasn’t worried about not doing well in the class. I had always been an exceptional English student, so I thought this would be a breeze for me. However, I soon learned that being good at reading doesn’t necessarily make you good at writing. From my semester in this course, my writing has become better throughout the year through writing in a way that is easier to understand, outlining all my essays, and employing better editing techniques.

The idea of presenting a workshop in class is a very scary thought for me. As the sign-up sheet went around for our in-class workshop, the date picked was for convenience rather than subject. For the first time at Cal Poly, I am juggling four classes. What a time to start to be ambitious! The early weeks I was completely lost in class and up until that point I had relied solely on my life experience to hopefully get me through this class. Understanding the concept of analyzing text or imagines merely by looking at the piece was easy, but terms like ethos and pathos, additionally, the explanation of new criticism’s goal for literary analysis to emulate scientific theory really all escaped me. In the weeks that followed, and our second journal was due, I had read, Sarrasine (Balzac); and The Purloined Letter (Poe). Now a tiny voice inside my head said, “I got this.”

In 5th grade there was a hearing and seeing test and I was waiting in line when something was wrong I can't walk what is happening. I don't know what to do. But my hip hurts.well my hip hurts and I can't walk and the doctor doesn't know what I have.

Giving back to the community is a passion of mine. The most rewarding experiences in my life have been doing what I can, to help others. As an Education major, helping children in the community is important to me, and reflected in my volunteer work. I have volunteered in several classrooms over the past two years in partnership with Junior Achievement. Volunteering with Junior Achievement allowed me to teach second grade students about the community they live in, the differences they can make in the community, and empowering students to become successful citizens who make a positive impact in the community. I have also volunteered with SA Reads, tutoring four students in reading in high-poverty schools in San Antonio. When tutoring, I use Science-Based Reading Instruction to improve literacy components. Tutoring students with SA Reads allows me to directly impact the lives of children in the community by tutoring them in reading each week, improving their reading skills, and helping students who would otherwise fall behind, succeed. Other ways in which I have impacted the community in a positive way is by regularly donating platelets at the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center, donating books to children nominated for an angel tree, volunteering at SWISD Special Olympics, Volunteering with Voices for Children, Picking up litter in a neighborhood, volunteering at the Celtic games and music festival cultural event at the kids’ corner, raising awareness of human trafficking

I spent the first years of my life in Pensacola, Florida. I was raised by a single parent, my Mom, and learned a lot about independence and women’s rights. Pensacola is a Navy town and she worked at the base. She would invite Navy people to our home during the holidays which taught me a lot about diversity. I learned a lot about from the people that came to visit and we had good times. They were in all colors and from various parts of the country. By the time I was in school, I had no fear of people different than me because of my exposure at home. In high school desegregation and bussing was taking place. Tension was running high and fights were breaking out nearly daily. A mixed-race group of us met at a girl’s house with the idea that we had no significant or insolvable differences and that we needed to find a way to stop the violence. We had a productive meeting and found common ground. The meeting took hold and the word got around that things needed to calm down. We needed the police to leave campus and we needed to take care of our own problems. It was a valuable experience. After High School, I went to a 2-year college and got a degree in Law Enforcement. That didn’t take hold well as my experience with the local police department was not good. I found them to be junk yard thugs, violent, and sex offenders of sorts. It was also a time I discovered my true love: skydiving. A friend of mine talked me into making my first jump with him. I was always fascinated with the

Inclusion: Means the action or state of including or of included within a group or structure. In education this means everyone has the same opportunity, there should be no boundaries to stop a learner reaching their full potential in the learning enviroment. (wikipedia)

As I read J. K. Rowling’s commencement speech for a graduating class of Harvard University, I found myself connecting with the text on a very personal level. As I reread the speech for tis assignment I was able to reconnect with the text and old memories came rising up to the surface of my mind. I connected with the following quote: “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all- in which case, you fail by default.” Rowling’s statements regarding failure relate to the time when I failed my math class last year and how that experience changed my life.

Upon further review of my past papers, I found some small grammatical errors that needed to be edited. In my unit one paper, there were a few errors that you had marked. I fixed those oversights then continued on with my revisions. In the second paragraph, I moved a comment to after a citation section in order to back up the information with my own thoughts as I had learned a little further in the semester. Another change I had made was to change a word that was repeated multiple times in a sentence. I also revised unit twos paper. I had received a perfect score on my paper, but upon rereading, I noticed a few things that I felt should be changed. They were not big changes, but I believe the modifications helped the information flow