My Experience in English Class

As the semester is ending, this last assignment gives me an excellent opportunity to look back on my experiences in this class. Taking English 43 with Professor Ho my first semester at San Diego Miramar College impacted my English writing in a positive way. I grew a lot as a student and as a person in this class. I truly appreciate my growth; this English class helped me improve my writing skills in a great way. I sometimes had issues with writing due to grammar, sentence fragments, and many other areas that needed improvement. This class really helped me. We studied all these different issues and now, I feel I improved, but still could improve my writing. At the beginning of this class, I was really timid and shy because of the adjustment I was going through as a young adult transitioning to college. My work reflected this insecurity and I felt like I did not do my best on the first assignments.

As the semester continued, I began to feel more and more comfortable as a writer and as a person. This class provided me an opportunity to interact with my classmates and discuss topics in class with a certain sense of maturity that I had never experienced in high school while I was in Honduras or any other country. After some classes, I felt more comfortable enough to share a little about my life experiences with my professor and my classmates, life experiences I only shared with my family or close friends. This class helped me view life in a different perspective in a short amount of time.

In fact, I have improved as a writer but the acquisition of this maturity in my life as a result of this class is very important to me and something that I am very grateful for. I had a very inspiring professor that helped me with my writing and showed me that with practice I can improve my writing. I learned how to use the writing process effectively by learning how to pick my topic, making drafts, getting in groups for peer edits, and revising my writing for a final draft. We did a lot of group work in the class, and that was beneficial. I do not like group work, but it helped me get input from my classmates. There were numerous activities I took part in throughout this course that helped me be more social with my classmates and see from other peoples’ point of view.

Analysis of articles is something else I learned from this class. When doing the revisions on the papers, Professor Ho corrections really helped me see what I did wrong, and kept me from making the same errors over and over again. Peer revisions gave me the opportunity to look at other of my classmates’ work and provide analysis and constructive feedback. Before my enrollment in this class, I never revised someone else’s or my papers. Indeed, I revised many rough drafts of my papers in this class. I feel like this is something very important that I learned from this class. Learning how to check and diagnose errors with the help of my classmates or my professor is a skill that has greatly helped the improvement of my writing. Now being able to make appropriate revisions to my work, I am a more well-rounded English student. I was very bad when it come to the time of editing my work at the beginning of this class; however, I now realize that adjustments are not only an important part of life, but they are a really important part of learning and writing. Whatsoever, no paper is ever perfect. I must make constant changes and revisions to create a paper that is enjoyable to read and high in quality.

Analysis of many situations are very important to being a successful person. I am thankful that I realized it in this class. After taking this class, I feel more confident in my writing and in expressing myself through my writing. Going through this English class taught me so much more than just about an English class; it taught me how to be me. I learned how to write paragraphs, how to express myself, how to think for myself, and how to find the answers to the things that I don't know. Most importantly, I learned how important English literature is; additionally, it also taught me how powerful the written word and language can be. Words tell so much more than a story. Stories tell about life and the human condition, they bring up the past, people, and cultures

that are long gone. Some stories teach the readers about the self and the world surrounding the self. By writing about what we learn or what we believe, we are learning how to express ourselves.

Definitively throughout this semester, I felt myself feeling more confident and comfortable as well as much better at seeing and catching errors. However, another one of my weaknesses was MLA format. I had to learn how to write it correctly and really focus on the citations and format. Therefore, Professor Ho made sure we cited our sources correctly and that we used the correct MLA format. I understand how to include citations now. MLA format helped me avoid plagiarism and to be more organized and clear with my writing. Some of the paragraphs or mini essays I did in this class made me be creative with my writing and show the readers who I am. This made me more confident in my writing and made me realize that by practicing I can improve and overcome my flaws. I was not a terrible writer in high school but I didn’t know about all of the new concepts that my college English course required until I had this class.

My view on writing changed drastically. I have a new respect for authors and readers alike. I developed more strength and overcome major areas I struggled with throughout my English education just in this one course. For example, another aspect of writing I have always struggled with a little was putting my thoughts on paper in a manner that is coherent and correct according to what was required. I remember being told numerous times in high school to organize my thoughts or to provide more support and examples. These are some other aspects that I have worked on and improved over this semester and I feel that my work shows this. In fact, the paper I wrote in my diagnostic was really bad and short. The difference in quality and length of my work in my first and last assignment are an excellent example of my improvement as a writer throughout this semester. There are still a couple of things that I do feel I lack the confidence and skill to perform, and that is what I hope to gain in my next English class. I know that from what I have learned this semester and with a little more practice I can overcome all of those issues and I can really develop my writing. This class helped me to acquire the skills I need to become a better writer in college and for my future.

Everything I learned and I am about to learn from my English courses in college will be very beneficial to me in the years to come. A majority of college is writing papers and lab reports. This class made me realize every English course is very beneficial and a necessity if I want to get through college with high grades. My English courses are going to prepare me for my future career as a food engineer. Part of the job is making new food products and improving food. This means that I will have to write reports, such as what techniques are employed or explaining how to improve food. Furthermore, I want to be well educated and as well rounded as possible for every aspect of life.

This English course taught me the importance of formal writing and that it is a necessity when writing reports for my future profession. Any business report needs to be professional. The writing skills I learned throughout this semester will stay with me in college career and throughout my future in the workforce.

My participation in this class helped me become a better student in general. This class made me realize what I need to include in my learning how to be a successful college student. This class was very different than any high school English class I have ever taken. Getting a feel for having class only twice a week was something very new to me and it took me some time for me to adjust. Also, the way of correcting our papers in this class gave us a great deal of freedom and let us chose how we wanted to do things. I feel like learning how to succeed in a college environment is something that will be very important for my continued success as a college student. Qualities such as self-motivation and many others I learned in this class also helped me in my other classes. And I realized that these qualities will be very important for me in the future as I have many academic goals in mind that I would like to achieve before my college career is over.

I am genuinely appreciative for all the things that I learned in this class and for the patience my teacher had for me through this semester. The benefits of this course were many in terms of academics but also in terms of life skills.

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