End Of The Year Reflective Essay Sp17 4q5a1c

Jordan M. Madrigal August 10, 2017 Honors College UTC End of The Year Reflective Essay I believe this past school year has been the most productive and life changing of all my years of school this far; no exaggeration. I am proud of many things during my two-year experience at Chattanooga State Community College: I graduated with the Global Scholars honors distinction, helped start a community garden, won several awards, mentored other Global Scholars students, and studied abroad in for three weeks. After working at a summer camp in Colorado in the summer of 2016, I came back home to Chattanooga, Tennessee three weeks before school started ready to dive in to the Electrical Engineering program as an Innovations in Honors (IIH) student at UTC. My classes were ed for and financial issues were being resolved. What amazed me as I immersed myself into UTC was the Honors College community. The Honors College community is a living organism made up of hundreds of students from three honors programs. The atmosphere of the honors reading room was magical. This experience was quite unlike my honors experience at Chattanooga State Community College. The student leaders made a huge impact on me. I was impressed by the honors s, but the way the student leaders interacted with the other honors students and vice versa was wonderful to me. It seemed like a modern society of young college adults who loved art, studies, community, and dancing. Everyone seemed to know everyone, and while I kept my distance for the first few weeks, the magnetic attraction pulled me to get to know others. This is what I believe lead me to being nominated to Honors Council. That is one of the accomplishments of this past year, ing the Honors Council. Although I did not sign up to run for council, I am glad to have this position of leadership, and I know that I was nominated for a purpose. Changing my major from electrical engineering to physics was one of my accomplishments this past year. This accomplishment led to another accomplishment. I was no longer studying for my own benefit or glory, I was studying for the glory and purpose of the Creator. Diligently I started the new spring 2017 semester. I came to class excited and enjoyed the details of what I was studying. Midway through the semester, I was awarded the Jane & Lawrence Akers Physics award at the annual Department of Chemistry and Physics awards ceremony. This award is given to one outstanding upper class physics student. Along with the award was given a substantial scholarship for the following school year. My contribution to the university that I am most proud about this past year was volunteering for GEAR UP. GEAR UP is a program for inner-city, graduated high school juniors and seniors who are getting ready for college. The students learned about personal finance for the coming years. They learned about the student opportunities that they have at UTC and Chattanooga State Community College. My participation was helping to lead out in afternoon activities with the students. This was good for them because it gave them the opportunity to interact and learn from actual college students. Several of the students asked me specific questions about college and voiced their qualms and fears about college. I am glad that I could guide them through some of their misperceptions and ultimately just be an example of a satisfied college student.

Some of the pitfalls that I have been struggling with this past year are procrastination and poor time management. These difficulties are connected to each other. I am disappointed in myself working on this assignment now, it was due June 2nd. I have learned some very important things about myself through this past year however, and I am ready to make a change. I have got rid of some other bad habits in my life, but as this one pertains to my academic, professional, and personal health and success, it is important to get rid of the bad habit of procrastination. My procrastination begins with a poor attempt at time management. I idealize and underestimate how long a task, assignment, project, or even eating food will take me, and so I become discouraged about not being able to accomplish my goals in the time I planned. I become discourage about not being able to accomplish my goals, so I choose to not plan or set goals. This makes me put off the big things that I need to do, and do all the other little things so I can feel accomplished. My procrastination is prominent writing assignments. I have the mindset of writing the final draft on my first draft, but this is not healthy; it is not efficient because it takes me way too long to develop the right phrases and flowing transitions that I desire. I want to make quality work. Writing is a process, I that because my honors composition teacher at Chattanooga State Community College pounded that into my head. I am beginning to realize the most efficient way to complete a paper is to write in drafts. It is much easier to get the words out on the page quickly, and then edit the phrases and transitions to match the quality that I expect. To put this plan into action, I have started here. This document has been edited three separate times. I am also beginning to realize that when I cannot properly estimate how long a big project is going to take me, I need to simply analyze the next logical, small step, and overestimate how long this small step will take me. That way, when (not if) I run into unexpected problems, I will have enough time to complete that task. Doing this will enable me to properly set and complete the goals I am given throughout the day. An hour does not last long, and I am only given 24 each day.