Challenges in Political Science Learning

I am a student at Irvine Valley College for two semesters, although the time is short, I have learned a lot of social knowledge and some things that cannot be taught in society. Right now, let's talk about the days before I went to college. Back to the beginning, I was very confused as a high school senior student, I don’t know which school I should apply for, as a high school student, there are lots of pressure on me, such as the pressure from my parents, and also from my personal. However, among these pressures, I choose to go to Irvine Valley College since my goal is to transfer to the University of California, Irvine. Time goes back to 2019 fall, as the second language learner, I took ESL 80 in my first semester and I got a B in that class, therefore, I had set my mind that I need to work harder and get a good grade. However, there will always be obstacles in the ways to success. Right now, I took College Writing 2 in my second semester, the biggest issues in my English class is my grammar errors and word tense. I still can’t make good use of it, incorrect grammar makes my essay difficult to understand. In my ESL class, I got a C in my first essay, one of the phrases that I had included in my essay was “In the other hand”, this was just one of the issues I had in my essays.

Thus, to improve on this, and get a better grade in my Writing 2 class, I went to the library to study, also, I went to the Writing Center about four hours a day and ask many questions to other English professors regarding my essay. I watch videos on how to fix my grammar issues and practice over and over. Besides, one specific experience that I remember was one of my friends taught me the ways when she wrote an essay and it was very clear and easy to understand. We had a great time and I think the most important thing is we learned more than we could have learned from writing papers. Therefore, in my first essay at my writing 2 class, I’ve seen fewer mistakes and improved my writing skills, I got 90% in my first paper, although it is not perfect, however, it was better when I’m in an ESL class. In addition, I really love the two books in my Wring class, American Prison and The Death of Expertise, for the first time, I am struggling to understand each book since they both are academic writing. In order to fully understand the meaning of the book, I highlight every word in the book that I don’t understand and figure it out. Writing down the notes which indicate the key point and search pictures on the internet when I need to. I had improved as a student in my writing class and try to do the best I can.

Another thing I have learned from this semester is from my political science class. The challenges parts are to figure out what social policy, economic policy, and foreign policy mean. Therefore I asked my classmates and study on my own, I listen very carefully to lectures and wrote down everything in my notebook that seems important. I now understand what social policy, economic policy, and foreign policy mean. Social policy is within a government or political setting, economic policy is regarding economic, taxing monetary supply, inflation rate, and foreign policy is the relation between country interact. In this class, we did group analysis, and present our ideas of how to fix the homeless problems. However, I learned many things during this class and meet so many friends.

Additionally, I faced many challenges this semester, but the biggest challenge is the presentation for my political science. I am always afraid to stand in front of the people, it makes me nervous and freaks out. Although the class is transferred to platform and remote control, I still need to use Zoom and present my presentation. Therefore, to get over with my fear, I practice a lot, I made a speech in front of my parents, pretend they are the audiences and fixed the problems when my parent asked. Right now, the semester is ended, although this semester has been hard on me, however, I learned many things and it help me in the future, it makes me feel more confident and prepared when the future is coming.

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