Goldstein, 1

Jaycee Goldstein
4/28/2023
English 102
Reflection Essay
Throughout the semester I was filled with anxiety about my writing. Having been out of

school for a while, I didn’t feel confident about my ability to write the different style papers that

were required. Prior to this course, I preferred writing from a prompt as I don’t want to pick a

topic that offends the reader. Unlike previous English courses that I have taken in the past, I

learned that writing about topics that I find interesting allowed me to connect to the topics better

which made my papers livelier. This course helped me enhance my writing skills and work on

my paragraph structure. Although writing is not my strong suit, this course has taught me how to

make my essays based on facts and not feelings, structured, and purposeful.

In taking this course I’ve become a more evolved writer. I feel that the order in which the

papers were assigned in class helped me to ease back into formal writing. To say the least, I was

terrified to write our first assigned paper because I didn’t think I had anything to say that hasn’t

been said before. Receiving positive feedback from my professor and peers helped to boost my

confidence. In the first half of the semester, I felt that I couldn’t express my opinions in enough

words to meet the word count requirements. However, by the end of the semester, I have proven

to myself that I can. At the end of the semester, I now am more comfortable writing different

styles of essays. For example, apart from the research argument essay, the reflection and

evaluation essays didn’t change too much from the rough draft version to the version on this site.

This is because I felt more comfortable and familiar with writing those styles of papers. For the

research argument essay, I had to often make sure the paragraphs conveyed the message of my

view while also being presented in a logical and understandable way. In addition, I had to correct
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minor MLA requirements and grammatical mistakes before I posted the final version. What was

the most challenging about this style essay was writing my paper without using empty words and

an emotional standpoint. This took a lot of redrafting and I needed to remind myself to

incorporate the ethos, logos, and pathos, in that paper. I chose not to modify the other papers that

much because I wanted to present them in their authentic form.

The videos that I incorporated in my ePortfolio are relevant to the papers. For example,

the Rhetorical Analysis essay was about the Foo Fighters’ song, “these days”. I felt that it would

be an injustice for the reader to not experience the power of the song. Similarly, the evaluation

essay was about the television show Shameless. I added the video clip so that the reader of the

essay can have a better understanding of the show if they were not familiar with it. This also

allows the reader to further connect to the content of my evaluation. Though my portfolio is

underwhelming in design and colors, it is an artistic choice. I wanted this portfolio to focus on

the papers rather than make the design scheme too loud.

When I first started this semester, I was timid and embarrassed to be in English 102 at my

age. Having been out of school for some time, I was mortified by the idea that not only my

professor was going to read my essays but my peers as well. As time went on and I was able to

read some of my peers’ papers, I quickly learned that I had nothing to worry about. My level of

writing abilities was on par with theirs and that was comforting. This course also exposed me to

different topics via Ted Talks speakers that were interesting, important, and entertaining. Having

had that experience has made me a more well-rounded person. I found myself picking topics that

I was interested in rather than having the mindset of what topic would my peers find interesting.

This made a big difference as the papers were not chores but rather a creative challenge.
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In the next year, I plan on continuing to learn how to help people at different stages of

life. As an addiction and recovery major, I want to help those who are struggling with any type of

addiction begin recovery. In addition, as a California-certified Residential Care Facility for the

Elderly Administrator, I want to create an assisted living facility that actually cares about its

residents. Having worked as a caregiver over the last decade with Alzheimer’s, stroke, and

Parkinson’s patients, I’ve learned how addicts and the memory impaired have many similarities.

My hope over the next semester or two is to continue to learn about people while becoming a

better person myself.