Gerardo Rosas Garcia
FIQWS 10108
Professor Nicholas Otte
Final Reflection
Never would I have imagined, getting this far in the semester and completing my first semester of college through a computer. A year ago, I was still finalizing what college to apply to and was all over the place, completing college applications. At one point, I was in the midst of what was ahead of me and what path to take, in order to succeed in life. With motivation and the support of those closest to me, I decided to take the traditional path of going to college and pursuing a career. In my family, it’s rare for someone to go to college, since most of them decide to go straight to work, when finishing high school. This wasn’t the case for me, since my parents, in particular, encouraged me to go and pursue something that really interests me.
Now that I have finished my first semester of college, I think that I made one of the smartest decisions in my life, since college has taught me a lot about life. College has served as a base to introduce me to the many obstacles that us, as human beings will be faced with. Through the semester, I have been able to grow mentally and build skills that are crucial in succeeding. One of those skills is that I’ve been able to better express my ideas and thoughts in paper. Before this class, I didn’t pay much attention to the way I wrote and the impact it can have on others. When reading, “Elliot Spencer”, by George Saunders, it was a crucial moment that made me realize the effect of writing. George Saunders introduced me to a style of writing, so unique and different which allowed for his points to be expressed so clearly and effectively. Once I read that piece of literature, it pushed me to have a better look at my writing and create my own way of writing that would allow for a better expression of my thoughts.
Something that this class taught me was to ask myself this question of “What is Writing ?”. To answer that question, writing is a way to express your thoughts, ideas and emotions which would allow others to connect with you or hear different opinions of others based on what you write. Writing is not just composing sentencing , but the way we form our sentences and the different styles of techniques and devices we use to create an effective piece of writing. This class has taught me a lot and I truly mean it. The ways things were taught and the way we were expected to write, encouraged me to better revise and helped me understand the importance of incorporating our own ideas. With the assignments given for this class, each time I was presented to a whole new piece, which was useful in strengthening the way I used information from any given text or internet source to better support my thoughts. An important thing that I took away from this class is that it made me develop skills that makes it easier to identify rhetorical and literary elements from a given text. I have always been that person, who had a bunch of trouble identifying those key aspects of a story, which at times made me frustrated since I really couldn’t gasp in all the important and key aspects of a story.
Now, I am able to break a story apart and see the many elements and messages it’s trying to get the reader to understand. One thing that I really think that I need help with, is better understanding and seeing who I am. This, in particular, has caused me to fail in fully expressing myself and creating my own style of writing, which represents the person that I am. I think that this class helped me a lot to push me and get a better sense of who I am. With practice I think that it will be possible that I am going to be able to express everything I have inside of me into my writing. Though, this class is a class that taught me a lot of valuable skills such as researching, and being able to effectively use that research that would better support many of the points that I was making in my writing. Overall, I’m really sad that this semester is over and that it went by so fast. I really want to thank Professor Nicholas Otte as he was one of the kindest and caring professors that I ever had this semester. Professor Otte made class much more relaxing and stress free.
The feedback he gave and the peer editing that we had, was useful in creating effective essays. He taught me a lot about writing and that is something that I really appreciate. All these things he made us do, was for a purpose in doing better and exceeding. This class was a class that introduced me to the unknown and allowed me to adapt skills that are important to have. The personal narrative and the character profile assignment were assignments I particularly enjoyed since it presented me to a new way of writing, which was a bit complex for me. However, the feedback from Professor Otte and peers made things more soother. To end this up, I just wanted to say thank you for teaching me many skills that are going to follow me till the very end.
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