My Final Reflection

Throughout this semester I learned a couple of things as a reader and writer. There are different ways to analyze what your reading, little things such as the author’s tone and delivery can mean so much.  As a writer, I learned how there are many ways to communicate with your audience and state your purpose. I feel my writing hasn’t really changed much since the beginning of the semester given we only did three projects and my topic for all the projects revolved around music. One thing I can say that changed in my writing is analysis. Something that influenced my analysis was the word count and the readings that showed how to read like a writer, with more of an understanding of things you will have so much to say. I can also say I’ve had some change in the way I think, now as a writer I constantly think about my audience, who is my audience and how do I speak to them. Before this class, I never thought about that when writing even in highschool which I now know I something essential when writing. So I learned something new and important in this class. 

From earlier in the semester to now I’ve grown in my analysis, I became more detailed with it than before. Coming into college from high school being online I really wasn’t putting any effort into my work. Now in college, there are higher expectations, I gradually put more effort into my writing and other classes. The word count also pushed me to elaborate, readings that explained how to read and write differently also influenced my growth. The readings and writings throughout the semester definitely encouraged me to always be mindful about how I’m communicating to my audience.

One notable lesson that stuck with me was the “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato. I heard his name plenty of times but never read his work until now. Through this assignment, I learned to always be open, there is so much I myself haven’t seen or experienced. In The Allegory Of The Cave conversation, I said “ Things are not always what they seem when you’re young and when parents try to steer us in the right direction and educate us but we are often rebellious because we think we know it all when actually we just know a “Lesser reality”.”  Often people are oblivious to a lot of things which leads them to stay stagnant in the mindset they have. It’s important to learn and be open to new things because knowledge is something important. How will you learn without taking heed of what’s being taught to you?

Throughout the different genres, my thinking has changed. As given new topics, I had to express my purpose and communicate with my audience differently. I definitely began to be more mindful about my audience, more specifically, who is my audience, why did I choose them and why should they know. At first, I didn’t think I wrote too well, but as I started getting good grades on the projects my confidence grew. My vocabulary grew as well, When I speak I incorporate different words I learned unintentionally, through readings and just listening to how different people speak. Writing reflects your vocabulary and vice versa.

One challenge I had was fulfilling the word count which pushed me to be more descriptive. In the past, I haven’t written this much for one project so I had adapted to it. At first, it was like what I am supposed to say, but as I did more work it became easier, I ended up having just enough or more to say than I anticipated. Another challenge I had was finding good sources that related to what I was writing about while still being different. I came across a lot of repetitive things, fortunately, I was able to find the right sources.

I actually didn’t expect to learn anything new I thought it was going to be a regular English class, however, I learned some things about myself regarding reflection. Questions that were asked about reflection carried me to a realization, In project 2 I said “I never noticed until now that the only time I truly reflect is only when I’m listening to music, it’s the only time I think about anything whether I’m sitting in my room, on the bus, or in the shower. No specific genre, just songs I like blasted in good headphones.”. I honestly never noticed I only reflect when listening to music, I used to get mad if someone was to call me while I’m listening to music because I would be in deep thought. 

One way I would incorporate what I learned into architecture is understanding my client, what they want, and need to know. Similar to writing to a specific audience I will be designing for a specific person/audience, I will definitely be more mindful of what they would want. Also throughout my school career, I will be open-minded to learn different things about architecture and not purposely limit myself when designing. First-year community learning with architecture was better than expected, I appreciated that the projects were related because it gave me more to think about and gave me sort of a push start. This also made the projects less difficult, given that they were on the same or related topic it wasn’t a lot to juggle. For instance, for project 2  I had to write what reflection means to me, what’s my ideal space for reflection, for my architecture final I had to design a space for reflection, I knew almost exactly what I wanted in my space which made the final smooth for me to complete, I didn’t have to do much thinking, I didn’t go through a lot of trial and error.