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Final Reflection Paper: Personal Growth
During the eight week study period at Concordia University, Texas, I have experienced significant growth and realized development in various aspects of my life. These include but are not limited to the academic, financial, and spiritual dimensions of my life. In this paper, therefore, I intend to discuss the development and milestones I have achieved for each aspect within the semester.
At the beginning of the semester, I made several deliberate action plans and put initiatives in place to ensure I realize growth in my academic and social dimensions. For one, I made a personal development plan highlighting the necessary processes that would enable me to perform and achieve highly. For instance, I have been able to realize a tremendous improvement in the average grades for my academics. I realized these improvements after I made a study schedule, which I religiously abided by. I assigned an appropriate amount of time for every course and effectively managed my time to ensure ample time was allocated to comprehend the concepts. I also made sure that every assignment and tasks were performed on time by outgrowing my old habit of procrastination to the very final hour; this also allowed me to proofread my work and produce high-quality products in the long run.
I experienced personal growth this semester in academics, financially, and spiritually. Example: I had to send in an SAP petition to petition for my financial aid.
Example: I improved my academics by not procrastinating, making a study schedule, and managing my time more effectively.
Example: I came to truths
In my previous personal development plan, I had made several initiatives through which I hoped to acertain goals both in academics and in social life. In the previous personal development plan, I had embarked more on the process that I believe would help me to think about mywn learning, performancand achievements as well as to plan my personal, educational, social and career development. Since I made the plan within the PDP, there are certain changes that I have witnessed happening in my career, social and learning areas. For example, I have noted that for the last one semester, I have improved in a number of areas that I had pointed in my last PDP.
In academics, I have achieved a lot, as my average grades have improved from the previous B+ to an A. This is primarily because I was able to develop clear SWOT analysis, in which I recognized my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats not only in academics, but also in my social life, extra-curricular activities and any other activity I took. With this plan, I worked hard to perfect my strengths, correct the weaknesses and make them my strong points, utilize the opportunities placed within my abilities and finally recognize and avoid any negative effect that was posed by the threats in the SWOT analysis (Bolton 2010).
From these considerations, I recognized that some of my strengths were the ability to work under strict deadlines, carry out extensive research, attend classes, and do personal studies and to submit all the papers and assignments at the right time. However, I also recognized that I actually had some weaknesses that caused my performance to dwindle in certain areas. For example, I realized that I had a problem relating with other students, tutors and friends. I did not attend discussion and group work, and seemed to ignore the strength of teamwork. I realized that I did not consult my tutors in academics; rather I attempted to do my own research. In co-curricular activities, I realized that I had done little in games and clubs within the university, despite having a number of athletic teams, training personnel as well as other facilities. I was not able to attend any of the activities before I made the last PDP, and even spent much time playing games on my personal computer rather than being involved in real athletics. In this plan, I set strict schedules to allow me attend my favorite games – soccer and American football. Within this reflection, I had also recognized a number of opportunities that I should have utilized to perfect my skills in education and social life. For example, the university has a number of games, societies and clubs, all of which are equipped and staffed to help the students achieve their goals in academics and other activities important in social and personal life. In addition, the university encourages teamwork, from which students realize their weaknesses and strengths, and work to perfect their strengths and to improve their weak areas. These were opportunities that I ought to have utilized before, but which had been the priority in the previous personal reflection plan. I further realized that there were certain threats that challenged my performance. For example, I was running a risk of being lonely due to my weak approach to teamwork. In addition, it was possible that I would face academic failures in future because I was becoming possessed with video and computer games rather than being involved in real physical exercises.
Several significant changes have resulted from the previous personal reflection plan. For example, apart from the increase in the academic grades, I have developed a good habit of relating with others in the university, and especially in my department. In addition, I have been involved in a number of discussion groups and even contributed to the development of general classroom discussion groups, in which students present their findings to the class during discussion time, while others try as much as possible to challenge the presenter. This has increased my confidence in academics, and I am more able to express myself than I would have done some few months ago before I embarked on self-reflection plan. Moreover, I am perfect in both soccer and football because I have dedicated enough time for these activities, and in fact, I have joined the university teams in both of these games. Moreover, I have joined the rangers association, a university society that is involved in environmental issues. I have realized that I am good in keeping and maintaining a good environment within our localities. During the last semester, we have taken part in national environmental programs, workshops and seminars, in which we have been taught the importance of maintaining good environment. In addition, we have organized a number of workshops for the community, where we teach elementary and high school students about the benefits of a good environment. In this way, I have realized that I have perfected my teaching, social and organizational management skills.
From the personal development plan I created last semester, I have pointed out three main key learning areas that need much attention, and which have been very pivotal as far as the incline in my grades is concerned. First, I have realized that education is not all about understanding of what has been taught in class, and thereafter reproducing it in the examinations. It is a fact that education is not all about passing exams, rather it is a matter of understanding the courses, and how the classroom gained knowledge can be applied in the real life (Bolton 2010). Therefore, I have learned that one needs to do a lot of research and experiments to practice the classroom gained knowledge in the related fields, and to imply the information gained in books to the actual world. Secondly, I have learned that time management is the most critical tool towards achieving personal goals not only in education, but also in the other aspects of life. From the reflection, I have realized that the increase in my overall academic grades, as well as in extracurricular activities, is a result of proper time management, and the ability to work with strict time schedules. Lastly, I have learned that education required coordination of activities between personal efforts and the teamwork. I have observed that students perform better when they participate in class activities, work in groups and challenge each other (Jasper 2007). Moreover, it makes one obtain courage to conduct a research on vital topics, and have the pride to present it in front of the others. This is important for future researchers and scholars like me because at least, I am able to express ideas and ideologies to a number of people, and to meet the challenges they pose (Jasper 2007).