What I am better at now than I was at the end of the previous academic year was time management in all of my courses. My math course I had to learn to be flexible with studying and helping around my house. The same could also apply to my other two courses which are Fiqws and “Intro into Jewish Life and Religion.” What I am most proud of from my past academic year was the ways I could help and assist my classmates. This was definitely a highlight in my eyes because I always want to help everybody I could with an issue or concern as it also allows me to be more interactive and social with people I just end up meeting. The things that went well this past academic year for me in particular was the completion of my assignments. I used to be really bad with submissions because I normally procrastinate and put off everything till the last moment and complete them, but it has immensely helped that I started completing them a couple of days before. What did not go so well my past academic year was the grades for my assignments. Yes, I did well in some classes like Fiqws and Intro into Jewish Life and Religion. But my math course was just something that I consistently struggled with, even with the help that I got it just wasn’t enough for me to pick up the slack.The insight that I gained about my own needs for my mitigating challenges was that I needed to study. When advancing through the grades all the way up to where I am today, I used muscle memory to get by all my classes and it worked to a degree. However college really opened my eyes and got me to realize I have to put in the work to pass. What I learned from all these challenges was that I can’t do everything alone, it isn’t a sign of weakness to ask others for help. When either going to work or if I am stuck on a problem I will always ask others for assistance if need be. My friends and professors helped me grow a lot this year. I can’t describe how immensely their comments and insights they gave on the assignments helped my character to be a completely different person than I was in high school. My professors are the ones who greatly contributed to me getting through this semester. If it wasn’t for them I don’t know what my standing would be here in City College. I honestly can’t thank them enough for everything they did and the feedback they left on our assignment, showing we had room to grow and improve. The experiences I am grateful for was the vast amount of people we got to meet during the first session of Fiqws classes. They gave us very informational slides about what they do and how they are able to help us like Braven for example. I felt the happiest during the days off in between my classes giving me more time to reevaluate myself on my own time. But even then I still liked conversing with my friends when I was at college nonetheless. The moments I am proud of are the grades I received during my time in Intro into Jewish Life and Religion. I say this because I never stepped into a new religion aside from my own and was very nervous that I was going to say something offensive. However my professor assured me that we can have such discussions without offending him. I will be honest and say the new apps and ideas that all the professors presented to us were overwhelming in the beginning but it was worth it. It was a step for me to ascertain how well or poorly I would do in college from here on out.

 

My understanding of the meanings behind genre, medium, author’s intent, and audience changed my perspective, because it’s more than just thinking about what your audience wants to see, but more about what they need to see, gives your article more of an edge that way. My understanding of navigating different writing situations or rhetorical situations changed thanks to weekly #3, the documents in particular of rhetorical writing. Like how social media impacted the audience and their way of thinking based upon what they see or read. My writing process was most definitely the turning point of the time spent in this class. It evolved from me writing to whatever I think sounded spectacular and proofreading it once and moving on, to actually carefully considering what my audience will like and ways I can improve on the wording. The work I created to enthrall and fascinate was very effective in the audience that I chose. It was to motivate teens in high school by using an inspirational video to help and inspire them to do well in school, no matter what troubles they may be facing currently. Something that wouldn’t bore them and make them leave the video in the first few seconds. Knowing what I know now in this class on how to approach and reach a new audience I would approach it the same way I would above my recent assignment. Find an audience I would like to engage, do some research on what that audience watches or read on the daily. Then create my piece based upon that. My understanding of the research process and how it should be conducted really altered my way of approaching research than I do normally. Every website should be examined thoroughly to get the right information to use and present to my audience to give them room to have their own opinions. My ability to compose my own positions, arguments or stances was modified greatly after being in this class. This also had to do with my classmates who presented valid arguments with evidence to back up their claims, respectfully agreeing and disagreeing with each other.