Reflection on the First Year of the University - Essay Example

? Reflection on the First Year of the The opportunity of attaining entrance remains one of my proudest achievements in life; it was the fulfilment of a lifetime goal, a culmination many years of dedication and hard work. The challenges I encountered during my early childhood always seemed to point my academic future in the opposite direction and the prospect of proceeding to the university was almost uncertain. Despite the effort and dedication I channelled towards my academic work, the thought of not making it to the university was almost inevitable owing to the opposing challenges. It is for this reason that the news of receiving an admission letter offering me a chance to pursue a degree at the university, which is the dream of every student, came as a surprise not only to me but also to those who knew me well. Surprisingly life at the university seemed to a very different meaning from what I had initially been made to believe. My first year at the university has not only been a success but has also availed a different world opening new experiences to me. During my first year of study, I have excelled both academically and outside the classroom environment. I have had experiences and learnt several things that I am convinced have pushed me a step closer towards achieving my lifetime dreams. Brought up in an environment where standing in front of even a small group of people was a reserve for the leaders in various positions in the society, or the educated elite, I consider standing in front of the class and making a presentation as the most important achievement of the year. Like many other students in my class, when the content, which was to be covered in our first year of study, was given to us and we realized that the culmination of the first year work was a class presentation, I could not resist the temptation of not making it. Never had I been faced with such a situation before and the thought of standing in front of so many students together with our teacher was almost unbearable. Nevertheless, I knew from the word go I could not entertain the temptation of giving up and my philosophy was to always give the best I could regardless of the complexity of the situation at hand. Furthermore the exercise was supposed to impart in us better organisational and multitasking skills. Owing to the situation at hand, I knew I hand to make thorough preparations if my presentation was to earn me any good results. I therefore embarked on a mission to take advantage of any chance to stand and address groups of people however how small these may be in an attempt to boost my confidence come the final day of presentation. I could spend several minutes trying to figure out how the presentation would be and at times even had imaginary presentations in my mind. Multitasking between several activities was the order of the day, I had walk from home to university each day and not the everyday chores could be left unattended. Each day came with its new set of challenges and the situation always seemed to be getting demanding with each new day. Assignments were piling up fast and time seemed to fly out as the deadline dates always seemed sooner than expected. Despite our concerns about the increasing workload, no one seemed to give a listening ear. Pressure was mounting up on me and I did not know where to start neither where to end. To me leisure was outdated and spells of work were often followed by long spells of sleep because of accumulated tiredness; moreover, there was so much to handle in so little time. Balancing between these was the turning point between those succeeded and those who failed and equipped with this knowledge, I struggled until I was convinced my last calorie of energy had burnt out. I knew the kind of life I was bound to live after my education would be greatly shaped by the kind of grades I could get here at the university; to me, the journey had just begun and there was no turning back. To an ordinary observer, my paths may seem to be running smooth and free from any form of challenges whatsoever, and life seemed easy and within my control; however, the challenges I came across were many and almost unendurable. Many are the time I chose to ignore the challenges I encountered as I knew heeding to them was the first step towards failure. Primarily the challenge of excelling academically is in itself is a big task to the ordinary student. When this task is entangled with other roles outside the classroom environment such as class presentations, the situation becomes even more complex and demands some level of dedication to be able to balance and excel in both areas. The ability to balance between several tasks and class work was the most difficult experience during my first year at the university. In order to enhance or rather the supplement the many challenges, teamwork was inevitable and we therefore teamed with other students in form of groups so as to be able to tackle the ever growing workload. We held discussions late at night in attempts to contain the ever-increasing workload. My recent achievement has not only instilled great confidence in myself but has also helped me cultivate a work ethic spirit. I now have a more positive attitude towards work; looking at it as my duty and responsibility and not as a burden. I am more inspired than ever before by my achievements but deep inside me I know this the beginning of a challenging academic mission. My success is well defined; I know what my goals are, the achievement has come at the right time as it has even inspired me to strive to achieve even more. My approach towards work has changed from that of an ordinary student to that of a professional in his own area. I am now convinced nothing is impossible, if I have managed to stand in front of my class and give a detailed account of my modules, I am now convinced I can do anything as far as my academics are concerned because to me that is the most challenging encounter in my academic lifecycle. Ever since I entered university, I have never shied away from challenging tasks but have always derived much pride in challenging myself by undertaking tasks that may seem impossible to others (AEA membership 2004). Following my achievements, my focus is now in the second year where I intend to spend some time working with primary school aged children as their teaching assistant and helping them with their learning activities. My passion for children is incomparable and I can only anticipate for excellent results come next year. The role will also involve helping to children with special needs, I also intend to work hard in order to uphold my tradition. Shaping my academic grades to the best I have ever had will also be top of my agenda. I have never settled for grades less than A and whenever I scored less, I always ask myself what I could possibly do to improve. Following my believes, convictions and personal efforts both in co-curricular activities and academic work, I am seeing myself gliding higher and higher in all I undertake to do in both areas in the year 2014. I am foreseeing a situation where my transcripts are largely characterised by grades not less than A’s. I know this is not going to be an easy task but with the right mentality, I am convinced I can always achieve whatever I set my mind to. Since there will be no class presentations in the content to be covered during the second year, I am going to have more time to do my class work that I expect to have a major positive impact on my grades. I intend to carry out intensive research on class work and projects. This will involve spending most of my leisure time in the library browsing the internet in order to supplement the materials that are provided in class. Constant consultations will also be one of my regular practices in order to ensure I get the appropriate guidelines to keep me on track towards my set goals. My priority will be to quench my unending thirst for attaining an “A” in every subject as I expect to have more time to revise and research on my exam units. To ensure that I achieve all this, I plan to come up good time plan and a timetable for each event. This will minimise the chances of overdoing one thing at the expense of others. The work of both Piaget and Vygotsy theorists has been a great inspiration to me through out the year. Vygotsy emphasized the importance of learning as a fundamental requirement of cultural development (House, 2008). Both theorists underscores the utmost importance of adopting the most appropriate practices to make learning a more realistic and fruitful process. They explore and illustrate with relevant examples some of these crucial practices, which can be embraced by learners at all levels. To them learning is a combination of several activities both within and outside the classroom environment (Reeve and Peerbhoy, 2007). Learning should not only be characterized by a series of lessons or lectures which may at times become monotonous and fail to capture the learner’s interest thus rendering the learning process ineffective (Potter,2006). For instance, young children learn better, when the process of learning is characterized with as many examples as possible (Rossi, Lipsey and Freeman, 2004). Their inspiring and guiding examples have not only guided me to my success but have completely influenced and change my perception towards several things. References House, E. R. 2008. Assumptions underlying evaluation models. Educational researcher. 7(3), 4-12. Potter, C. 2006. "Psychology and the art of program evaluation". South African journal of psychology36 (1): 82–102. Reeve, J. & Peerbhoy, 2007. "Evaluating the evaluation: Understanding the utility and limitations of evaluation as a tool for organizational learning". Health education journal66 (2): 120–131. Rossi, P. H., Lipsey, M. and Freeman, H. 2004. Evaluation: a systematic approach, 7th ed. Thousand oaks: Sage. AEA membership, 2004. "American evaluation association guiding principles for evaluators". American evaluation association. American evaluation association.[Online] Available at http://www1.eere.energy.gov/analysis/pdfs/drft_aeae.pdf [Accessed on July 18, 2013]. Read More