As I looked ahead to the extra credit assignment next week I was forced to reflect on what I did right in this class, and what I should have fixed. This course was without a doubt my toughest course I have taken at AVC. I can’t be sure if it was the work load itself, or if it was being required to be able to balance and evenly distribute the workload to meet the deadline without meeting in a classroom. The first 4 weeks or some of this class I did not understand the idea of setting smaller deadlines to meet the larger deadlines. It became easier for me to handle what I needed to in this class and my other classes if I set up some goals every week. For example, I tried to complete my blog as soon as I got the prompt on Monday, and with reading the Essays and answering the critical thinking questions I made sure I had those done before the weekend so that I could use the weekend to close up and loose ends I had not finished.
In my opinion, what I got the most out of this class, besides a stronger grasp on time management, was the ability to put myself into an assignment further than I have before. Some of these assignments, like the bias in a news paper article or the timed essays on “On Bullshit”, brought out a passion I did not realize I had. The reason I was so passionate and remember these assignments specifically could possibly be due to the fact that both of these topics somewhat offended me. I came to realize that having to deal with and discuss topics that are not agreeable to me and upset me in a way bring out a better writer in me; a writer with more conviction because I care more. This could help me in the future if I am given a choice of topics or the chance to create my own; I now know that the best choice for me would be a topic that lights a bit of a fire inside me.
I cannot lie or sugarcoat it, this class, at times, brought out an ugly side of me and had me cursing the computer. But after my tantrums and after I had completed the assignment I felt a sense of accomplishment (and foolishness for throwing the tantrum). This class made me rise to a level I have not been challenged to achieve yet, not necessarily with the amount of work, but with the demand of time and effort.
To my classmates who remain: obviously we achieved something here that about twenty of our fallen classmates did not feel they could do. I am grateful I had intelligent people to critique my papers and exchange opinions and ideas with. Congratulations on the completion of this class and thank you for all your help! Good luck with every endeavor each one of you takes on.
Finally, thank you to Professor Gross (Jennifer, sorry I still struggle with the informal thing, but I think it’s cool), thank you for always being available to answer all my questions and for forcing us to rise to the challenge of Online English 103.
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Yay to all of us! I find it kind of funny that the one thing we all agree on is how hard this class was (kinda’ sounds like a support group). For some reason when I took statistics, I thought I had taken the hardest class I would ever take. I have to say that my statistics class was not as hard as I thought it would be, but it was a lot of work. But compared to this class, statistics may as well be considered a "basket weaving" class - and I like to write! But I have no complaint about the writing; I think it was the amount of reading that I found overwhelming at times. And since this is a critical reading class, I found myself putting in more time reading than I normally would have. And yes, time management is very important with a class like this, especially when we have the flexibility of having all week to work on most assignments. But I agree; being pushed this hard and coming out on top has its rewards. I feel like we just finished being trained by a Romanian gymnastics coach, and the big competition is next week.
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