Reflection Letter

Although I have been through college programs before, I am now completing English 101, the second college class of many on my journey to becoming a nurse. I spent most of my late twenties working in various jobs trying to find one that suited my abilities and personality. I kept finding myself in jobs where I did well, but I did not feel my job meant anything. I wanted a career that I had a passion for. Through all of my searching, nursing found me. I had previously completed a personal trainer program at Ashmead College which led into my jobs at therapy clinics. Although I enjoyed this work, I realized that I really wanted to work in a hospital setting. I took the first step and got certified as a nursing assistant through Edmonds Community College. I have been working in assisted living facilities as a nursing assistant for three years now and am ready to take the next step in my career toward a degree in Nursing. Completing my first class last quarter and now continuing this quarter has allowed me to see that a Nursing degree is attainable for me!

I struggled at the beginning of this course thinking that my computer skills may not be up to par for an online class. I have gradually felt more successful throughout this course though! Not only have my computer skills improved, but I have realized that although I have never considered myself a successful student, I can be. The feedback I have received from my classmates and instructors has helped me identify my strengths and areas for improvement in writing. I have learned that I enjoy expressing myself through writing. I have found that I am easily able to put my voice into my writing and my sentence structure has improved, but I still need to work on organization and including examples.

Besides my growth in the area of writing, another important element to this course was our themes: identity, community, and tradition. I have always been reflective on my own identity and how that has developed based on my upbringing and the experiences I have had in life, but I know that the readings and responses from this course have helped me to gain a deeper understanding about identity and specifically how it is related to community and tradition. In this respect, I am glad I am one of the older members in the class because I was able to use the information from our readings to reflect on the life decisions I have made and how my life was shaped throughout my teens, twenties, and early thirties. I particularly learned from the assumptions that were included at the beginning of each of our units. These assumptions helped me understand the belief points about each theme that many people carry. They also helped me to identify how I viewed identity, community, and tradition.

To illustrate the growth I have made this quarter, I have chosen four writing pieces to include in my portfolio from various stages of my learning in this course. The selected pieces highlight my strengths as well as showcase revisions I have made as my writing has improved this quarter. The first piece I have chosen was a discussion board assignment in response to Emily White’s essay “High School’s Secret Life”. I feel that this response demonstrates my critical thinking skills. Next, I am including a piece that shows my skills at revising my work. This piece about pop culture was our third major writing assignment. I chose to write my paper on the topic reality television, which is a topic I am very interested in, but unfortunately I had so many examples to share than I didn’t end up finding ways to include them effectively in my paper. I have revised this piece and am now excited to share it to readers to see the improvement I had made in the paper. Next, I included a discussion board posting to our first Movie Talk group about the movie “Freedom Writers”. This discussion board shows my awareness of audience and voice. Finally, I have selected a blog assignment about community for my writer’s choice. This piece gives the reader the essence of who I am and I like the way this piece shows my ability to write effectively while introducing myself.

Please enjoy my great works of writing!