An assessment of what ive learned this semester in class

Gabriela Gutierrez Ms. Elliot English 252b My Educational during the spring semester I was super excited to start my second semester at Merritt College and even more excited to complete English 252 unit. During the Semester, I have learnt some useful skills that Iwill need for the rest of my college life. The book that we read during the semester is titled “ On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and In Life by Skip Downing”. In this book “ Downing” is used to illustrate some key ideas that we will need in our career. Downing’s book helped me discover a lot about myself. In addition, the book demonstrated to that I am solely responsible for my own outcomes and experiences in college. Still, the book is instrumental in making sure that I make correct choices for my personal life. In this article, I would like describe and share my experiences in college in the course of this spring semester in English 252B.
Right from chapter one of the course book, we learnt the true definition of success. In this case, I discovered that success is a choice that a person makes. As such, the choices we make while in college have a direct impact on our success. According to the course book that I have mentioned above, success is defined as staying on course to your outcomes and experiences, creating wisdom, happiness, and unconditional self-worth along the way, (pg. 3). Before I undertook the course, I defined success as a mare act of accomplishing set goals and targets. However, this changed once I read the book; the success is no longer the act of just passing exams, but the power of our choices that go hand and hand with accomplishing set goals and targets. By drawing illustration from the Downing work, we find that “ The main ingredient in all success is wise choices. That’s because the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of the choices we make on a daily basis (3)”. These lines have been lingering in my mind and I have used them as my guide for nit only the entire semester, but also the rest of my course and entire life.
Another discovery that I have made is that there exists two types of individuals; the victims and the creators. In chapter 2 Downing explains that the extent at which a person accepts personal responsibility determines if someone fits the description of a victim or a creator. To describe the creator dimension of a person, I would describe an example: in this case, when I have to choose between completing school work and taking a rest after a long day working, I would instead take a day off from work. That way I have taken the role of a creator as I will be able to complete my work and at the same time take a resting break. Downing shares this sentiment by saying that “ when people keep doing what they’ve been doing even when it doesn’t work, they are acting like victims . When people change their beliefs and behaviors to create the best result they can, they are acting as creators. (32)” in this case, I am fully responsible of all decisions that affect my life and as such, I have the choice to be a victim or a creator.
One of the many lessons that I took in my course was on developing emotional intelligence. In this case, the lesson really resonated with me as I can apply it in real life situations. Downing states that the way we react to unexpected things in life can really affect our life choices. As such, one can depict that it is and it is imperative to be conscious of our own feelings. For example, in the middle of this semester I was drained from working 35 hours a week, and school four days out the week I really felt like my health was deteriorating. I was really thinking about dropping my class. But after taking a step back and thinking about things that matter to me, I realized that I was just overwhelmed. In this case, the course helped me to avoid making big mistake that I would have regretted for the rest of my life, and that would have led me further from my goal.
This semester the book “ On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and In Life by Skip Downing” really gave me some life changing advice and tips. These are some lessons that I have been applying often during the spring semester and will continue using them for the rest of my educational journey. Now I am ready to take on this coming semester with full confidents that I can handle all my classes. English 252 has been fun and I’ve learned a lot along the way. I’m looking forward to see my educational journey will take me from here.