Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Semester Reflection P1

What challenges do you face as a student in a project-based learning environment?
I'd have to say that after attending HTHMA for 3 years, the greatest challenge I find is the ability to do "normal" school work when it is assigned. By this, I mean essays and other assignments (i.e. math assignments, next-day biology readings, etc.) that would be due in a limited amount of time I sort of found harder to do, since I was used to working in and out of school on a long-term project, such as Ampersand, where I could space my time out and not have that "it's due tomorrow" feeling. This is a challenge, since I will have all sorts of different assignments due overnight in senior year and college, so I have to get used to not having project homework every night.

Describe in detail one significant academic challenge you faced this year. Why was it a challenge for you? Go in depth, use specific experiences, and explain how they contrast with a less challenging experience.
I mostly had a challenge when it came to organizing thought. I found myself stuttering when it came to explaining my own thoughts when I was called on, or writing in unorganized thought with no pattern. Even now as I write this, I find myself jumping from sentence to sentence. Because of this I had an especially difficult time writing for the La Jolla Light Newspaper (my internship), since my ideas mostly came out jumbled or 1/2 in my head.
Also, Ampersand was more difficult since it was more like I threw everything I wanted to say in the article all at once.

Describe one valuable mistake you made this year.
I think a mistake I've made this year was not keeping up with reading, especially with Grapes of Wrath. I didn't figure it meant much since I was working on Ampersand most of the time, so I didn't keep up with reading. Next thing I know, I'm being told that there's a quiz coming up in 2 days on chapters I haven't read, so I end up frantically reading through the book the last day. I found this to be a habit throughout the year with the honors novels, but after the GoW issue I learned that I should be more on top of reading, and was able to complete Slaughterhouse 5 on time and finish the quotes/sketches every time they were assigned.

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