James Donckels

Final Reflection

Looking back on this course, my main goal was to pass the class with a B or better. As of

now, I’m sitting on a low A, so as long as I keep doing what I’m doing for this final week, I’m sure

I will be able to accomplish this goal. I also wanted to actually learn the material we were

covering, and with regard to that, I’d say I accomplished that goal as well. The document

interpretations were especially helpful with this. They really pushed me to dive deep into each

topic, and really think critically and analyze the situation, circumstances, audience, and purpose

surrounding each document. I think these were the best part of the class for me.

The things I’ve learned in this course also carry over into other aspects of my life. First

and foremost, I think I’ve improved my ability to put myself in other people’s shoes and practice

empathy for them, to really think about and picture what they experienced and how their life may

have been. This is especially true with all we learned about slavery as well as with Celia, a

Slave. This is the deepest I’ve ever gone on these topics, and it gave me a newfound

understanding for the terrible hardships slaves had to endure on a daily basis. At the same time,

this has deepened my gratitude for the world we have today, where all people are truly equal

under the law and have equal rights, regardless of race or sex. I’m grateful that we’ve come so

far and made so much progress, and I’m glad to live in this generation and not 200 years ago.

Another thing this course has helped me learn more about is human nature. As I learned more

and more history, read more and more accounts of people from all walks of life in many different

time periods, I think I have a better understanding of human behavior and what motivates,

angers, and encourages people. This will help me in all walks of life, because no matter what

happens or where my life leads, I know I will be interacting with other people and since I’ve just

learned a lot of history, and history is about people, I’ll be that much better at communicating my
ideas, that much better at discerning people’s intentions, and that much better at collaborating

with other people.

Going through this course has improved my academic skills as well. I think the biggest

one is reading comprehension. With all the textbook chapters that I’ve read through, and

especially all the documents from the document interpretations as well as all the discussion

responses from my classmates, my ability to read a text, understand what it says, and draw

conclusions about it has improved significantly. The sheer amount of repetitions and practice I

got at reading a passage and then having to respond to it, and the amount of time I’ve spent

practicing critical thinking and breaking down arguments presented in different documents and

texts, has all helped me improve my reading comprehension skills. This in turn has improved my

writing as well. Having to form my own responses in document interpretations and the various

other assignments we’ve done throughout this class has allowed me to get many repetitions in

on the writing side of things, and as a result, I believe my ability to communicate my ideas

effectively has come a long way as well. I’m a lot more comfortable with writing than I used to

be, and I also feel my ability to support my arguments with various sources has improved as

well, largely due to the document interpretations, which were some of the most effective

assignments I’ve done to help me learn the material and develop my academic skills. At the

same time, this class has also challenged my time management and organizational skills by

having to keep track of many different due dates, assignments, responses, and uploads all at

the same time. While I eventually got my feet under me and I’ve been able to keep with the

pace of this class, it has been challenging, and I’ve spent many a late night working to finish up

a response or an assignment before the 11:59 pm due date. I think that’s the area where I can

improve the most—-my time management was not as good as I wished it would be, and going

forward, I’m going to work even harder to make sure I keep track of all my due dates and

deadlines in the future, and push myself even more to stick to a consistent schedule and to

maintain my discipline, because if there’s anything I’ve learned from this class, it’s that one
small lapse and you can find yourself very far behind and scrambling helplessly to catch up, and

that’s not a fun place to be. I’m grateful for the experience though, because I’m now able to

learn from it and use it as a reminder in the future of what to avoid, and I’m confident that taking

this course has made me a better student overall. Considering all I’ve learned and how much

I’ve grown, I’m quite proud of myself to have made it through!