This semester was a learning experience on every level possible. Personally, I learned how much potential I have being a full time worker and how to deal with time management. Educationally, I learned plentiful from my science & psychology courses, and last not least, my writing class. Initially when applying for the course, I thought it would have been an easy course that just involved a series of short assignments and papers, but boy was I wrong. This course required me to devote my time, and patience due to the amount group work that was done. This course has taught me how to engage and learn from others, change my perception, and evolve my writing practices.
In my perspective, I believe the hardest task was working with others. Thankfully, my group was patient and were open to new suggestions. The free time that I was able to devote to my group was only during class, or if there was not an in-class meeting. Because of this it made some assignments a confusing process to us because some things were just not easily explained over text. For instance, when assigning each section of the overall presentation, Jahan and I were in charge of recording our voice, however, I was unable to meet at the time that was set up so in result we had to record our voices separately; because of this, Kareem had to adjust the volumes of the voices through the website we made our video on. In addition, even though none of the work was submitted late, my partners were persistent of me to complete the group assignments based off their time schedule- which made that difficult- however taught me that I must be attentive and diligent when working with others. Moreover, CCNY is one of the most diverse CUNY. In the class and in my group, it was clear that English was not the first language, so I believe those circumstances can also broaden ones’ patience and learn how to adjust to how one speaks, and writes.
Throughout the course, there were several opportunities for peer- review. This exercise not only opened but changed my perception on how to work with certain assignments. During peer- review, the groups were able to walk around the classroom and give their thoughts and critic the work displayed. The work displayed gives one an idea of the imagination and thought process of the group members’ collaboration and was well presented. In some instances, it gave my group members and I an opportunity to change something we liked from another group. When giving our critiques for the infographic, I really enjoyed the pop of colors, and how one group presented their work on neonatal syndrome. My group and I discussed what we liked and made some adjustments to our presentation. For presentations, even though my group went first, I still picked up on ways on how I could better present my material the next time. It would have been great if our group had the time to practice on what to say, because during the presentation I caught one my group members being wary on the content that was being presented. And after viewing someone else’s presentation- you kind of think to yourself “damn, I wish I did that”. Overall, sharing our material and presentations went very well and I personally am proud of the work my group and I presented.
Last but not least, this writing course did enhance writing practices. It was very well established that we had to write at least 16- page research paper for our topic. At first, I’m pretty sure it frightened many because 16 pages of trying to mix different writing styles sound like a mess. In the end, the paper was displayed with great amount of information and with a total of about 35- pages. Finding articles within a 2-year span that fit our exact topic was also tedious. My group and I wrote our research paper on academic performance versus stress, and what we found were a lot of research journals that included stress but not involving academic performance precisely. I believe what really strengthened our writing was learning how to read each journal article and was able to connect each one them to each other, even though all the papers were different stress topics. I know my group and I did an amazing job learning how to read and cite our material because when posting the final paper on blackboard, the Safe Assign was only 2%.
This writing for the sciences course has taught me so much than I expected. For one it taught how to work with my group members, and also taught me how to create different forms of multimedia. Before this course, I never created a website; but creating two for this course was enjoyable. I would spend so much time picking out the color schemes and themes because I was being very articulate on how I wanted my work presented. In the end looking at the overall website, gives great feeling of satisfaction. Overall, I felt that one really had to commit their time to this course, and in the end looking at all the work submitted it will show the improvement and effort made by each individual.
Attached is the self-assessment in Word document
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