REFLECTIVE ESSAY: Personal Qualities, Work Habits, and Attitudes
I've faced many obstacles but I never give up even when it gets very hard, I've learned and shown growth. Especially this senior year. I didn’t give up even when graduating seemed impossible and personally, I feel like that's the most important thing when it comes to achieving your goals. I've had trouble with procrastination, time management, staying on task, and most importantly being motivated and dedicated. I'm more than proud to say I've improved with those habits, using my free time to get my work done instead of being on my phone feels much better. I'm not overwhelmed with a load of missing assignments. Yes, from time to time I do procrastinate, but it isn't as much as how it used to be. I've been able to maintain a useful schedule, not hectic, and not wasteful in my time. maintaining good grades while still having fun with my friends. I used to think that was never possible but now that I'm giving all of my effort, and working hard I'm able to balance school and outside life. I'm much happier with where I’m at right now, and I think happiness is very important too. It contributes to a healthy lifestyle, and when it comes to education that's very important because you can't give your all when you aren't doing things that are making you happy. New Basics I was born in Berkeley California, I went to elementary school in Oakland “Bella vista” then for middle school I went to `` AOA''. Coming to ACLC at first was a whole different experience from the other schools I had attended. The main goal of ACLC is to have an environment where you feel comfortable and safe and mainly focused on college. It took me some time to adapt to this environment and find myself. Just recently I've learned that it's really not that hard to maintain good grades and stay on task when you are giving your full attention and effort.
Thinking and Reasoning Skills At ACLC, I've learned how to use critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, communication, and teamwork skills. Those are very important because in the future for whatever career you have you'll be 100% using that, using all of my efforts and actually knowing what is going on in my classes feels great. I don't have to ask my classmates “Wait, what are we doing?” I used to find it awfully troubling to go to my teachers and ask for clarification, I didn't have any communication skills but throughout my junior and senior years that improved. I personally feel like it's really important to ask your teachers to repeat something or simply ask questions. Being organized is another skill that I improved on, taking notes and having my work put into folders made things so much easier. When a test was “open note '' I never took advantage of that because I had no notes to look at in the first place.
Interpersonal Abilities I can come off As a very shy person, when I was in Middle School my communication skills weren’t the best, and being able to work together in groups was very difficult for me. freshman and sophomore year at ACLC was pretty much the same, but then distance learning came along and some might think it would make it worse since we were not in person or communicating with people in public but somehow for me it was time for me to find myself and get more comfortable with communicating. I'm able to work with new people, I'm able to present while not being so anxious, I'm able to speak up and use my voice. I Do enjoy working alone, and personally being alone is time for me to really get my thoughts together and use my critical thinking skills. but I am proud to say that working with people is much easier for me now, it's very interesting to hear their perspectives, hear their opinions, and really see things from their perspective. Yes, your own opinion does strongly matter but seeing things from other people's eyes can really change your mind on some things.
Technology In middle school technology used to be a huge issue for me, I didn’t know how to work with it when it came to doing assignments on the computer, I wasn’t there when they were teaching students how to access things and I was lost, as time went on I was able to understand it with the help of some teachers. Coming to ACLC I was able to fully understand how to access Jupiter Google Drive, Google Docs, etc with no issue. All of our work is mostly on the computer and personally, then I used to complain about doing work on the computer but now I love it, getting work on paper doesn't feel right. During distance learning my skills with technology improved tremendously. conclusion Although at first, it was odd to adapt to a school environment where there are not that many students, I enjoyed that. This way we can all come together as a team. All of the facilitators here were very helpful and had great teaching strategies. It's been a very stressful 4 years but I am glad I can say I've made it this far. I will miss Aclc for its leadership, great community, and helpful environment. I wish the best to everyone, nothing but success and happiness. Aclc made me prepared for whatever my future has to offer.