Lisset Martinez

Professor Beadle

May 7, 2019

Reflection Essay

Writing hasn’t been one of my best subjects. I don’t hate writing, I just don’t feel

confident in it. I am a person who overthinks too much about my writing and I lose myself when

I start overthinking. This causes me to waste too much time, that I start getting overwhelmed

with the time crunch I am in. Reflecting back to how I have done most of my essays I can see

why I didn’t get the perfect score I wish I could have. Having a job Thursday through Sunday

made it even more challenging for me to juggle the five classes I was taking. The grades I was

getting weren’t cutting it. I noticed I needed the extra help on my writing skills. I wasn’t getting

the best grade I could get and it was time to ask for help. Reaching out for help is one of the

greatest things I am glad I did. I noticed I had forgotten the many basic writing formats that make

a good essay. I was able to gain a clear thesis and smoother transition in my essays without

letting my thesis get lost in my body paragraphs. I was able to tie back to Ethos, Pathos, logos, in

my essays which made my writing more credible.

My confidence in my writing has never been great. I am a person who overthinks too

much about my writing. I want my writing to stand out and to be able to have a great argument,

or just something that can impact a reader. I waste more time on thinking how I can perfect a

sentence or how I want to explain something and give it a great meaning that I don’t end up

doing that. I end up getting frustrated with myself and taking way too many breaks. Doing the

same routine like overthinking and wasting too much time in my essays only caused me stress. I
knew what had to work on as a person and so I tried taking a 5 minute breaks every 20 minutes,

since I felt like I couldn’t stay focused for too long without getting frustrated with myself. That

wasn’t the most effective way and it didn’t fully work only because I had my phone right next to

me at all times, lighting up with a notification. It was easy to get distracted. It was a hard step

leaving my phone in my room while I went to the study room in my apartment building, and it

took me quite a while to decide I had to be as far away from my phone as possible. I still fight

myself and lie to myself on why I need my phone next to me when i’m studying, and I am still

working on fixing that. I have noticed improvement on that, since when I started. Bad habits are

hard to kill, but not impossible. I started practicing more and more time without my phone next

to me, and it helped me alot during my last two assignments in class like, my Godzilla essay and

my presentation. I was able to focus more and waste less time. I did stress less and felt like I had

more time.

Working from Thursday through Sunday, I would still feel like work took a toll on me. I

chose my schedule these days because from Monday through Wednesday I can fully focus on

school and finish everything before I go into work. Then we have Thursday’s through Sunday’s

where I can focus on working and getting other errands done. In most occasions I still work on

my assignments when I get out of work or before I go in if I didn’t get to finish certain

assignments for class. Doing eight hour shifts does tire me out which is a reason why my work

isn’t as good as it can be. Financially, I am not stable enough to not have a job, so not having a

job is not an option for me. School will always be my first priority and I do admit that my job is

very understanding of that, and I am grateful for that. For example for these finals I was able to

take Friday and Saturday off to study on my finals.

 In addition, learned so much from this semester than from my first semester. First

semester I didn’t use any resources that CSUN had. In my head I would rather go home before

staying even more in school. When in my English class I had an assignment that I had to go to

the Learning Resource Center and get help from tutors for one of my writing assignments, I

wasn’t excited for it and I didnt want to fit it into my schedule. Because it was part of my grades

and I didnt want to get a zero on an assignment I had to fit it in my schedule for the week. Going

in I was thinking about how 30 minutes being one on one with the tutor helping me on my essay

would take forever. Furthermore the tutor skimmed through my essay and made me feel

comfortable about not getting judged on my essay. I got guided on how to make my thesis clear

and how to never lose my thesis in my body paragraphs, and to always make sure it ties back to

the thesis. They also helped me into having smoother transitions. Another thing they helped me

on was how to make my essay credible and how to use Ethos, Pathos, Logos. I had learned this

in class before but when I would write, I would get lost into it and not make it as clear as it can

be. From that first time I went to tutoring, I started going often. Everytime I had an essay I would

make an appointment and get as much help as I could. I stopped thinking 30 minutes of tutoring

was a lot and actually started feeling like it wasn’t enough. To this day it is not enough time to

get help on my essay but it sure does help a lot. Reaching out for help made me realize how

grateful I am towards these programs at schools, and thankful for being forced to go, I was able

to realize what I was actually missing out on and all the help that can help you become a better

writer.

Overall, throughout the semester I learned how to figure out what I as a person needed to

work on. Trying new strategies to better myself as a person can be challenging, but if you really
want to better in certain subjects, one has to try new things and see what affects them for the

better and not for the worse. Reaching out for help when one isn’t used to, is also something im

proud I was able to overcome. I learned that asking for help isn’t a bad thing. It doesn’t mean

you aren’t as smart as you should and you don’t have to feel that you are going to get judged

either. Being afraid of asking for help stops someone from discovering many new good habits

that help you in the long run. You learn new things from different people some that stick with

you in your life and some that don't but you are able to use what you learned and become a more

credible and knowledgeable person.