Spencer Crane

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Intawiwat UWRT 1102-091

10/23/2015

Mid-Term Reflection
Up until this point in the class I give myself a B with room for growth. I have sufficiently
followed the directions for the assignments up until this point as well as putting in a little extra
effort into the research and development of my topic. I will be researching Emotional
Intelligence and how it affects our decisions. An interesting topic that I hope will provide
intrigue and excitement to the further development of my essay for my peers as it has established
this sense of excitement within me. I chose a B because though I have reviewed my previous
assignments and journals for use in my essay and edited them accordingly based on peer
suggestion, I have not made any edits to the online submission of the tasks and that is not so
much extraordinary as it is above average.
My participation in this class I believe is exemplary with attendance to every lecture, a
positive encouraging attitude, engagement in debate and discussion of topics we discuss, and
finally proper preparation of materials for the class time. I engage with my classmates multiple
times per session about the novel we are discussing asking them advice for my paper and
questions on their beliefs simply out of curiosity. My attitude towards this class is a ready to go,
positive attitude that I believe spreads to other classmates as well.
The journey to finding my research topic was a long, but successful one. I started out
with a simple topic that I was curious about, which was a simple theme of recklessness. It turns
out that theme doesnt have much to go on so I broadened my topic to emotions and how they
factor in decision making. Still unsatisfied with this I googled my current topic and the result I
found was very interesting. Emotional Intelligence, the ability to identify and manage emotions
in positive ways, was what popped up and I found myself immediately engrossed in reading up

on the topic to see if I could do more research and make it my own. I took others advice in
coming up with the focus of my proposal and continue to thrive in this subject field as far as my
paper is concerned.
As far as the 3 discussions we have had up until this point, I found them to be very
enlightening as far as how I was going to continue research on my topic. The Into the wild
discussion is what led to the decision of changing it from recklessness (thank god) in the first
place. These discussions have given me a better understanding of the direction I want to take this
assignment as well as maybe possible projects I am considering starting in my own free time.
So far I would give my progress from the beginning of class till now a range of 3.2-3.5
as I believe my work to be above average but not to the level of extraordinary YET. I am
planning on spending some time editing previous journal entries, getting some better sources for
myself, and spending more time on the research aspect of the class to bump myself up to a 4. I
believe my topic to be attention grabbing, exciting, thought provoking, logical, and precise to
this point in the class but some organizational prowess must be expended before I can get to that
extraordinary level.