Gabriel Navarrete

19 December 2022

1. What are you better at now than you were at the end of the previous academic year? Name all of the (course and general) ways that these improvements were made possible.

I would say that my improvement showed mostly in my acceptance and appreciation for peer reviews. For the most part, this class was based heavily on our group assignments and from that, learned to be more open with letting others grade and critique our work to benefit everyone all together. These improvements were made possible from other classes as well as they all required some sort of peer review and from that readiness to show what I had written, I began to show my personal friends my work as well to give myself an even stronger opinion on my work. 

2. What are you most proud of from the past academic year? Why does this make you proud?

This past academic year I’m proud of the effort that I put into every piece of work I handed in. I looked back on high school when I didn’t worry about grades or assignments as much and I would brush them off until the last minute. But this semester I kept going and trying my best with everything I could taking every assignment of every class seriously and spending hours on writing assignments looking for a perfect writing style that fits my personality and voice. Toward the end of my semester when I figured out my writing routine and style is when my grades for my writing had improved greatly from mostly B+’s to A’s which in my opinion is definitely a harder stretch as an A grade definitely meets a level of understanding that takes time to develop.

3. What went well this past academic year? What tools, supports or resources aided your success?

I absolutely would have loved my routine for assignments to have happened sooner in the academic year than it did. For the most part, I took so much time off of work and I pushed that part of my life aside for my studies and physical well-being. I created a habit of working out in the mornings and coming straight home to a cup of tea which for some reason became a habit trigger of opening up my laptop and getting my work done. These simple changes in my habits are what aided my success to be more productive. Alongside that, i also deleted mostly all of my social media platforms as i found them to be major distractions. 

4. What did not go well this past academic year? What was missing that made this experience challenging or undesirable?

Failure was one of my worst fears this whole semester. I looked at my grades every week and thought that I was a failure for letting these past assignments gather up so much. I felt weak and unmotivated. What was missing from changing was my mindset. I stopped calling myself a failure and pushed past all of my fears of failure and I believe once I began to see the good within me was when I was able to feel proud of myself and my accomplishments. I felt like I couldn’t be proud until it was over, but the little wins in life are what matter in the end. 

5. What insight did you gain about your own needs for mitigating challenges? Where or how can you fulfill these needs in the future?

In the future logging and documenting my thoughts throughout the year I believe will let me be a better student down the line. Allowing myself to be afraid without bringing myself down is also a key as being afraid is just a signal that you need to prepare and be ready for what’s coming. 

6. What did you learn from overcoming challenges? How will you remember what you learned and apply it when a similar issue arises?

Overcoming challenges taught me that you must appreciate every effort made good and bad. I learned this in the process of creating the second major project of the semester which was the second major project I was focused on multiple projects all at once and I wanted to focus my time on those first but I found myself too soon in thick water as the deadline for the creative project approached I realized that I had nothing to present. From this, I will remember to always space out my work and attempt to do work when it’s assigned or the week that it is assigned as opposed to waiting till the last minute. 

7. Who and what helped you to grow this year?

This year what helped me grow more was my desire to be better seeing myself down the line past everything and succeeding in something that I love. Overall, trying to embody that mindset of being the best version of myself allowed me to tinker with my habits and reflect on my daily routines. 

8. Who and what made getting to this point in the semester possible for you?

My family and friends were a great source of inspiration and support. To get to where I am currently I had so many challenges to face financially and mentally I couldn’t have done it alone and looking back to where I was to where I am now I see myself as almost blind to everything that I’ve overcome. My support group really opened my eyes and inspired me to be better every day. 

9. What experiences are you grateful for? How can you acknowledge or express that gratitude?

The experience that I’m grateful for is receiving a very low grade on my bioethics first draft term paper. I was absolutely devastated as I spent so much time working on the paper but despite the attempt, the philosophy taught me that there is always an argument to be made about merely everything and from that, I had to start again with new fresh and reinforced arguments. My gratitude for this low grade is because it inspired me to do better in my final draft which I did. But, after several hours of writing the paper, I was proud to show what I had learned both in ethics and in my writing career. 

10. When did you feel happiest or most at ease this year? How can you experience those moments more frequently?

What made me the happiest definitely was when I completed my portion of the research paper without any major revisions made by my peers. It made me feel great because although I know my writing wasn’t perfect I had spent enough time and energy working on it the first time that it paid off in having minimal work to complete when it came to revisions. I believe that to experience more rewarding moments like these I should take every assignment seriously whether or not it’s a first or second draft. 

11. What moments are you proud of? What can you do to celebrate yourself?

Another moment that made me laugh was going into a math exam with no hopes of passing. I had walked into class super nervous but in the end, I received a really high grade I was so excited and so shocked because I was so unsure but I celebrated with a night out because I spent most of my days studying.

12. What new ideas, information, resources, or research made a positive difference for you this year? What was helpful about these things?

New ideas in philosophy open more positive doors for me such as stoicism. Known as the art of persevering through any obstacle coming toward you it opens your mind to a new level of understanding and overcoming pains and stressors in life. Reading stoicism allowed me to apply some general rules in my life and that pushed me to read more from stoicism to reading I became an avid reader pushing myself to reach a daily goal alongside changing my daily habits. 

Course Specific (only this course): cite assignments from the course (40 word min each)

1. How has your understanding of the meanings behind (and usefulness of) genre, medium, author’s intent and audience changed?

Initially, these five important writing tools I had thought very little about. As they aren’t things that I think about so much when I read scientific papers. Now that I’ve spent my time researching preparing and creating a research project I’ve learned that all five of these are essential in making sure your work stands out and is talked about more than I couldve imagined. Medium and audience both have a massive effect on how many people read your work and how many of those people can actually understand what is being presented in front of them. Moreover, all of these five writing essentials affect everything down to the research you perform and since than ive learned how critical each category of a research paper can be. 

2. How has your understanding of how to navitage different writing situations/rhetorical situations (different genres to write in or audiences to write for etc.) changed?

My understanding of  writing changed in the word choice that I decided to add in. For instance if I’m attempting to write for a general audience it’s good to provide sufficient background information and explain scientific words. Moreover, if i’m trying to write for an educated audience i would then be very straight forward as not much needs to be explained.

3. How has your writing process changed or evolved after this semester and how has the class affected this process?

My writing process was very minimal and short. I would attempt to write as much as i could and then stop whenever i felt done without re-reading work or reviewing my thesis statements. After this class, knowing that my work is going to be judged and looked at by my peers, I spent more time minimizing grammatical errors and reorganizing my ideas more concisely. I also began to set timers for myself with small breaks during my writing process to allow myself time to breath and relax during long writing periods

4. You produced a work that had you create for a new audience: explain (using genre, medium and audience understanding) how was that effective for the audience you chose.

For our creative project we decided on targeting highschool students and parents of students during covid. This was a perfect audience to present our data for as we wanted our educational genre to be accessible to the specific demographic we were researching. The medium we chose was a small poster that could be posted up on train cars, subways, hallways anywhere a student might be as we kept it small and educational. We made a speech to go along with it as if we were presenting at a school providing kids with tips and mental health advice from what researchers found about stress, grades, and covid-19.

5. Knowing what you know now (from having taken this class) how would you approach a situation in the future in which you were asked to write in a new genre and for a new audience?

Knowing what I would know now I would put myself in the position of the person im trying to write for and ask myself what would grab my attention and how much attention would i give a specific thing given the medium. I believe this understanding is enough to provide your audience with a good environment where they are ready to learn.

6. How has your understanding of the research process–how it is and how it should be conducted–been affected by this course? And how might this help in the future?

My research process during the research paper changed from blindly selecting whichever document contained a nice quote that I could cherry pick; to a very specific informative document that contained the demographic and resources needed to apply my own discussion to. In the future this could help as during the process we also learned how to search for and find specific papers needed through advanced search techniques. 

7. How has your ability to compose your own positions, arguments or stances been affected by the course?

For one I learned that stances can change throughout the research process. Finding evidence to back up your initial stance might not be the best or ideal thing either as if the research does not support it then it’s best to be open minded when it comes to an inquiry question as the entire purpose is to be surprised and from that excitement you should push yourself to show everyone else.