Self-Assessment

What is Assessment? To me it is essentially a review or an understanding. It is also a tool we as humans use to look back and try to improve. We use it on others, ourselves, groups, societies, humanity as a whole, and even heaven and earth, the universe itself. Connect these various dots across this large canvas. To assess myself in Eng 11000 Fall 2025, we must look over what has occurred so far. 

The semester started off pretty chill. The first day still vivid, the lighting gloomy on the 4th floor, somewhat fitting because it was 9:30 in the morning. The atmosphere was quiet and gloomy too, after all this was the first step into the unknown behemoth ‘college’. The big leagues now, for me and the rest. It started off pretty standard, syllabus and explaining of the course, except there was a lot more cursing and straight forwardness than I expected. At some point I started to shift my view of Prof. Brain from cringe to sincere and serious, and try to take some mental notes for the future, in case I remember them and they come in handy. A habit I had developed over my life so far, somehow. My attitude was good, actions not so well, did not interact with others. 

Then came the first assignment, the June Jordan worksheet or something along the lines. I completely messed up, I read and did the worksheet for the assignment. Second time this has happened in my life, but I won’t go into detail. I decided not to redo it because it is what it is but mainly because I did not want to do it again. My laziness kicked in at this point, and it wasn’t going to go away for the rest of the semester. The assignment itself was good and bad, it gave me a glimpse of my future in this class I realized in the Nac library when I submitted the assignment. It was comprehensible and easy to follow, yet tedious for someone like myself. 

Following it were a couple other readings or discussions, and then we were introduced to our first major assignment. The LLN and Translation 1. We were given quite some time as it was introduced very early, and we spent a lot of time on it writing and peer reviewing. What helped me a lot was the simple advice of “just write” that Enid gave us all, along with some things like don’t think, don’t worry about it. It stuck to me in class, and when the time came to start writing the first full draft, 12 am of the day it was due, I did just that, opened up a doc and started typing after reviewing the instructions. It turned out to be quite good, I was told by the writing center and my peers later on. My attitude was inflated, and a bit of my ego, because it went so well. The translation was more difficult because it was broad. I wanted to do something like a slide show, but I couldn’t because it was too much effort and I needed it to be like what I was imagining it to be in my head, perfect. Fortunately, the broadness also allowed me to switch my style from my initial style of slides to a poem, saving me. 

These 2 assignments were the core of the semester for me. I learned a lot while writing the LLN because it allowed me to view the same topic of language from multiple different lenses, and the translation taught me how to convert it. They taught me how to further and more clearly connect myself and experiences to real issues. Also how to turn a seemingly small issue of language into a border one, by first taking it seriously, but more importantly finding ways how it connects and impacts other topics, because everything in life is connected. A good life lesson as well. The translation presentation also reminded me of how much I hate presentations, but I still had to do it as it was my responsibility. I did learn to take it easy and be lax on it, because I simply need to do my job: present. Although, my stance/professionalism along with attitude during the presentation could have used improvement. 

The rest of the semester was incredibly wonky, because a lot of things happened outside of the class but also we had to research now. The synthesis essay. I got through the research part pretty okay, so I was fine. I learned a strategy for a research essay for the future, it was to first come up with a topic, then find something, anything research wise to cite, then build the text and ideas around the research. Although, the multimedia was pretty difficult so it was just around. 

While the synthesis was starting, a lot of things were happening outside of class. 1 I misunderstood the syllabus attendance thing somewhere along the way, I thought you could get an A if you had 8 or above absences, not a D. Taught me to always double check even if its stupid things like this, because it led me to skip some classes strategically during November. Why? Because I had to come in clutch for 3 midterms, 2 were fine, but the other class Calc 2, I was struggling with, so I had to put in extra effort starting from November 7th to Dec 2nd. I was studying everyday, did the midterm, and then an exam afterwards and was able to pass barely. Not only that, I had also landed a job finally, my first shift November 15th. So November was packed and I got incredibly lax in this class. I went from saving myself from repeating Calc 2 to trying to save this one. Looking back, it was my lazy and depressing attitude and poor organization. Sure, things happened and it was a pretty packed month but I could have organized better, even if not better at communicating so I was able to not fall behind like I did. Taught me a good deal, at a price of course.

Finally December where I pass my final exam on the 2nd(good grade, hard work paid off), before the finals start, and had decided to catch up on my missing work, when I get sick, and then when I do get better nothing feels in my grasp anymore, because I could have submitted my work early and started prepping for the finals quite a few days earlier, but instead here I am writing this at 6 am the day its due, with a final 6 pm today. But that’s life.

In conclusion, this class was an uphill slope, and then things happened and we went straight down, not in betweens. The important thing is learning from this and other experiences. So what did I learn? Quite a bit, going from connecting topics, life and social, researching and how to do it from me at least, to painfully learning the importance of organization, communication, and taking initiative. And my actions throughout all these were a bit of both, because although I did mess up here and there I still tried to fulfill my responsibilities. Although applying all these lessons will take a few more broken eggs from because once isn’t enough.