Reflections

Reflection 3:

It is surprising that it is almost the end of the semester. In fact, it feels odd to look back into the past; because it feels like it was just a few months ago. Not long ago I had just stepped on the University of Kentucky’s campus as a new student. Time really passes faster as we get older… As I look at the past, I remember disappointment during my advising conference during summer. I remember learning that my University of Louisville Dual Credit English 101 class did not get me out of my freshman English classes. I learned that before I entered UK, they had changed the curriculum and class for freshman into a broader, encompassing class. To tell the truth I never liked English and was not looking forward to spending another year of my academic career in English. But I realize that my preconceived notions about this new class, WRD 110 were wrong. This experience has allowed me to progress as a writer and as a student. My experience so far, has been much better than what I thought it would be and would test skills I had developed before and create a challenge to develop new ones.

These preconceived notions I had about this WRD 110 class, was that this class would be filled with analyses of poems, classics and other literature. Along with this would be large amounts of essays, and papers that would impound on me. When I think of where these ideas came from I think about all my past English classes and my English 101 class. I remember my senior year in High School, the English 101 class wasn’t bad but it had a series of several long length essays. My opinion of the class changed as I learned more about the class and the several different activities we did in class. One of these out of the box activities I remember doing was the several rhetorical analyses over commercials such as the Yoplait yogurt, “For Her Bic Pen” and the Victoria Secret advertisement.

The introduction of the Digital Documentary and some other activities would eventually test my comfort zone. During the period easing into the project, I remember doing activities that I never really done before. For example two activities that were new to me were ethnographies and creative writing. I remember when I was trying to write and ethnography within my descriptive web-text it was a serious challenge. First off, I never really wrote something that went extensively into writing about my surroundings and infusing emotions and thoughts at such a high level. Along with that problem was the infusion of research with sensory detail that threw me off. The extensive amount of creative writing was a challenge due to the fact that I have more experience with formal writing such as scientific research papers.

These several activities that took me out of my comfort zone helped me build new skills and reinforce old ones. The Digital Documentary helped me become more spatial aware, and made me want to delve further into a subject. The project and class forced me to further develop my speaking skills. In fact, one thing that has made me really happy and excited is the improvement of my speaking skills, as well as a decrease in my anxiety. During the last speech for the project I noticed that I did not have butterflies in my stomach and I felt an odd calmness.  

I know that these new experiences and atypical “English” class has allowed me to grow as a student and reinforce old skills and create new ones. These new skills will prove its worthiness in the future with my career as well as WRD 111. I feel more confident in my speech making skills, and the idea of creative writing as I looked toward to the future.

Reflection 2:

Throughout history a major component of action is performed by the collaborative results of groups. One person cannot create change or action but could maybe start action. That is what it means to be a leader. In history, we can see that many movements such as the suffrage movement in 1921, the creation of nations all required a group of people working cohesively. These groups tend to have a leader, and they drive the action of the group with the support of the members. As an engineering student I understand the idea of having to work in a group, in fact it is major component in the engineering field. In the field of engineering, many products are designed and created but without communication between different departments such as the design engineers and the manufacturing engineers, the product could have a dismal result.

Although I agree with a general sentiment that group work is a good thing, I always cringe when I think about working in a group.  I have always had negative memories of working in a group. The memories of having to deal with slackers and having to finish all the work by myself is probably why I personally don’t like to work within a group. Now, this is not stating that I am not willing to work in a group because obviously there are good memories mixed in. So, when I heard we were allowed to choose our own groups and the creation of a group contract a wave of relief ensued.

The group that was created all had similar interests in the College of Engineering allowing a smooth action and group work. So far, I believe this is one of the better groups I’ve worked with. When deadlines are up in coming we decide how to split up work and who will be in charge of compiling the work. The process is a smooth one, every time someone volunteers to become the compiler. I remember when we were writing the proposal paper, Hunter from the start volunteered to be the compiler while Logan and I were the proofreaders. This was one the few times I was in a group where the splitting up of responsibilities was so smooth. I was very glad and confident in the actions of my group. Each one of us finished each one of our sections before that weekly Tuesday meeting allowing us the time to revise and offer suggestions to each other.

The overall diversity of our group has allowed the group to work as one. Where each one of brings in some attributes that help assure the success of our project. When I think about the attribute I bring to this group, it is probably communication and some leadership skills. In our group it seems the mass emails are started by me with prompt response with the other members. When it comes to leadership skills, I mean the idea of structure such as creating meeting times, creating discussion and mentioning things I see.

As this semester has gone on, I can mention progress I have had as a writer and a speaker. Through the project I have been able to see different styles of writing from my fellow peers, and known writers. I have also learned new ways to write differently.  As a speaker I can say there has been some improvement in the speech anxiety I experience. The proposal speech we gave, I definitely felt a little less stressed until I realized we were running out of time. But I can say that it was definitely easier this time mainly because we presented in a group but also I felt more confident.  Even though I can say that I have improved a little bit as a speaker, I still consider myself as a writer more than a speaker. As I mentioned in my first reflection, I am a spontaneous writer. Random thoughts and ideas pop in and out of head daily, but then at times when I have writing assignments I face considerable writer’s block.

Writer’s block is such a formidable opponent, and that is what I faced as I sat in front of a blank word document when it was time to write my web-text. This web-text was not a type of writing I had much experience with. I had just recently learned how to write an ethnography. I mean I know what kind of writing that is, but I never had any personal experience. For me I had more experience writing structural writings and more formal writings such as scientific research papers and essays. So I sat in front of the screen for quite a while. Eventually thoughts started popping into my head. I thought back and tried to replay some of the discussions we had in class and I would eventually remember what you said about the web-text. So I attempted to combine the ethnography with the research I had taken about the Davis Marksbury Building with a degree of difficulty. As I was writing, I remember the experiences I had in the Marksbury Building and I remembered how surprising that there was very few students and it consisted mainly of graduate students and professors.

Since finishing the web-text I realize how much work still needs to be done on our project as a group and by myself. For our group as a whole I think research is the key thing we need to be working on. I can say our group does seem to be heading in the right direction and seems to be on schedule. In fact, Allen is planning to work on our artifact by starting on the program this weekend. Now as of my part, the key part of research is to interview the deans and professors. I am still in the process of setting up interviews and I hope I will have some key interviews within the next two weeks. The process of setting up interviews had been interrupted by an unusual amount of work and tests these last couple of weeks.

When I think about this project, I feel like it will be a great experience. The variety of skills that have to be utilized in this project will help me grow. Being forced to develop interview skills, public speaking skills, and writing skills will help me become a better-rounded student and a more attractive candidate for future endeavors.

Reflection 1:

People across time have been driven to action by a few simple words. Speeches are a key source of these “few words”, and they rouse the public to action. What makes speeches great is the ability to draw people into the story. Great orators throughout time such as Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln and many others have defined generations through their words. Speeches have served as directional pieces such as the State of Union in the US. Sadly, speeches are not always performed well even if it had some of the most elaborate writing. In fact, I have sadly sat through several speeches that have bored the audiences to tears. How I personally define a great speech is how it was presented, and a balance between facts and some personal detail to make the orator human.

Even though speeches are such beautiful ways of communication, I was not gifted with it. For my whole life speaking publically has not been a favorite pastime. It was the one thing I tried to avoid unsuccessfully and was not the greatest activity when it was in a different language. If I had to pin my issues with speeches down it would be stage fright. Although, I dislike public speaking the process of forming a speech is always an interesting endeavor. When it comes to writing, I feel that I am a spontaneous writer that records all the ideas on a sheet of paper and let it form on the computer screen. The idea for my speech came to be as I was lying in bed. Actually most of my ideas appear as I think about things I need to do before I go to sleep. When I thought of my place, I thought where do I feel comfortable being in and discussing with a group of people.  After a series of thoughts, my family appeared, a cornerstone of my life. I knew with this topic my audience could relate but also notice the differences between their own families and my own.

As I processed my thoughts and feelings into a piece of writing I felt old memories come back. It was a welcoming feeling into my past where some memories had been pushed back by school work and calculus. As these memories came back my nervousness about presenting decreased. I decided that it was better to make sure the speech was acceptable for me, and not let the audience dictate the actions I would take in a personal piece. I believe personal works is about self-satisfaction, as long as the work you have worked long at is amazing, it is all that matters. Well of course, since this was a speech, I still had the lingering hope that this speech was relatable and not boring. Also the biggest hope of all, the grade…

Finally the day before and the couple hours before the big “event” I had at least practiced the speech 9 times. Although this speech was personal I’ve had past experiences where my mind went blank from the anxiety. The easy part of course was the creation of the speech but giving the speech was whole other problem. Before I went up there, I told myself that I had faced this same mini trial before and I could overcome it.  Thankfully I had finished the speech and a sense of relief rushed into me. Knowing that my classmates and I had accomplished an anxiety induced activity felt great. But at the same time I hoped that I had performed well enough in comparison to some of the amazing speeches made by fellow classmates. Stories of Haiti, families, cities gave me a slimmer of connection to people I had never seen before.

When I continue to think back on this assignment I am glad this project was assigned. Public speaking sadly, is a big part of many careers. Even if your career did not contain a great amount of public speaking it allows you to improve upon communication skills and deal with stress and nervousness. Hopefully I can improve from this performance such as preventing the occasional stutter and more eye contact.