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[erinpcurran]

Metacognitive Reflection (12/6/20)

I have decided to reflect on my writing because that is primarily what this week has consisted of. In this week alone, I have incorporated my writing techniques in a research paper, research presentation, an analysis paper, and free-writing about a certain topic. I am convinced that having so many assignments that require writing and my input have strengthened my writing. Before this semester started, I struggled with writing a sentence word for word from an outside source, instead of paraphrasing in my own words and then still citing it. After the substantial amounts of research papers I had to write this week, I now notice how I easily paraphrased sources and have gained confidence in this particular field. Since we are still amid a pandemic, many of my classes assigned final projects instead of final exams which may require more work but has allowed my writing to excel in all of my classes. In this class, we were assigned to free-write for our reflective memo assignment due later next week. I absolutely love free-writing as I believe it allows for more creativity to be integrated into my writing. Free-writing is almost like a rough draft and allows me to be able to get an understanding of what I am going to write about. For next week, I now know that I have started a little bit on a major assignment and will be able to pick up right where I stopped. As I have already submitted a metacognitive reflection on my blog, the same feelings towards my writing. There is one thing that I believe I have strengthened from the previous metacognitive reflection and that is not having a strong outline on what to do with a project. In my Public Health course, our final consisted of a final research presentation and a final paper about the same topic. At the beginning of this assignment I felt clueless and had no idea where to start, but knowing that there is not a heavily detailed outline on the assignment -- I knew that I could include all of the necessary points that I felt would be relevant to inform the readers of. I feel like I have overcame a lot of my struggles in writing, and am now very confient in my writing.

[erinpcurran]

Personal Reflection (11/29/20)

Woo!! We are almost done with this semester, so I decided to reflect on this spectacular week that just happened. Thanksgiving was this week, so there was a lot for me to vocalize what I am thankful about. I am thankful for the life I have been given to be able to do (with a college student budget) the things that inspire me. I am thankful for my lovely boyfriend, friends, and family who continuously show their gratitude and appreciation towards me. Forgive me for listing one more thing I am thankful for, but I am thankful for the education I am receiving to be able to build a successful, joyful life. Although I do not like to take Thanksgiving for granted, I embellish the love that comes from the holiday but I am continuously working on being thankful no matter what day of the year it is. The food we devoured was to die for, especially since this year I managed to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving twice -- with my boyfriend and his family, as well as mine. Aside from all of the Thanksgiving talk, this week has been a little bit more on the stressful side of things because since are near the end of the semester, I feel like I am close to drowning in all of the projects I have been assigned. To give myself the necessary reminder, this too shall pass. Since this is one of my last blog assignments, I wanted to give you, Dr. Hanson, a huge shout out on the constant reassurance and how immensely helpful you were in bettering my writing. Coming into this class, I remember an assignment that we had to acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses we felt in our writings, and looking back on all of the weakness I put down -- I can proudly say that I can mark every weakness that I felt in that point in time off of that list. So, thank you for helping me find my passion in writing!

[erinpcurran]

Personal Reflection (11/20/20)

To reflect on what is going on in my life this week, we are nearing the end of the semester, which means finals are right around the corner. As I would expect the stress and agony of yet again more testing, this year is different. I would have never expected my anxiety-prone self to be more than prepared and ready to hit finals head-on, but here I am. Thankfully though, this week has been one of the least stressful ones I have had this semester. As I am trying to keep myself on top of my work, and giving my 100% in every class — I can proudly say that the hard work paid off as I completed one of my courses this week. I finally feel like the pieces are starting to form together for this path we call life. Additionally, It is so surreal to think about the fact that I will be a college graduate in ONE year. All of the things that I am hoping for the next coming weeks and going into the new year is that everyone is healthy, where they want to be, and that we all finish this semester strong. We are slowly adapting to a new normal, which means everything we do is primarily online and masks are becoming a part of our style. As I hope that this does not stay our normal, I also just read that Pfizer and BioNTech say that their vaccine for COVID is 95% effective and have passed all safety checks. If they put this vaccine on the market, would you get it? In my other health care courses, this has been one of the major topics and I read a report that 8/10 Americans will not get the first round of vaccines. What are your thoughts?

[erinpcurran]

Metacognitive Reflection (11/15/20)

I decided to switch things up again and create a metacognitive reflection for my blog. This week was filled with various writing techniques like creating a proposal, writing a research report, and analyzing articles then providing my own opinion on major controversial health care topics that are currently being discussed. As I am continuously learning new, creative aspects of writing to incorporate in my own -- only enhances my performance and delivery of it. At the beginning of this year, we were asked to describe how we feel about our own writing and I remember noting that I was a little discouraged and insecure about mine. Now, I feel as if the insecurities are gone and I want everyone to read my writing because I have gained so much confidence in it. As my confidence in my writing has grown, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Some aspects that I feel like I might be struggling in is writing reports. For our class, I felt like I repeated the same words over and over again in my report. I feel like I am struggling in this part of my writing because of the lack of rules put into place for this project. This could be due to the strict rules and rubrics that have been put into place when you first start school, and this project is the first one I have ever experience with the leniency of being able to take your report anywhere you want it to. As I am writing this reflection, I am reflecting on how I am viewing everything as a whole for our project. I believe that getting the reassurance that I am correctly doing my assignments is the only thing I need.

[erinpcurran]

technical writing reflection (10/25/2020)

This week was definitely one of the toughest weeks of the semester for me by-far. Within the past three years, I have developed an on-going cycle of struggling with seasonal depression -- which I am almost positive stimulated from constantly being anxious and stressed about my position in the dental hygiene program. Although I have changed my major since then and could finally throw all of the detrimental weight off of my shoulders away, the depression continued to follow with me. This week was full of rainy, gloomy, cold weather and turns my bubbly and highly optimistic personality into a sad, uninterested one. Consequently, it also does not help that we are currently in the midst of a pandemic and I do not get to have the human interaction that my extroverted self needs anymore. It is a burden for myself during these times (and this week) to understand how to control my negative thoughts and emotions, and my usual priorities are nonexistent. I can usually tell when an episode is in the near future, but as many may have learned/experienced, it is inexplicably impossible for me to prevent it. I do not want this to seem as if I am calling for a pitty-party, but during that week I had almost zero to no motivation to complete any of my schoolwork, get out of bed, shower, and do the normal daily tasks. Reflecting on this tough week only prevails my strength to be able to bring myself back to reality. 

[erinpcurran]

[erinpcurran]

Metacognitive Reflection

As a writer, I think there are endless ways to bettering your writing, but currently, I believe that I my writing is flourishing on the creative aspect -- brainstorming, stretching thoughts, and personal views I incorporate in my writing have been becoming more complex and thought-provoking for the audience. This writing technique is more applicable to my Health Care Policy course, but beneficial to me for this course because of my short, knowledgeable phrases that will be applied in my cover letter and resume. I think that I am succeeding in this type of writing because I like to dig deep on a certain topic (especially dealing with health care) and to be able to provide my viewpoint on an important matter. Some areas that I seem to be struggling in are re-reading my work to make sure that there are no grammatical errors, and making sure I pay attention to the minor details that are either from the instructions, rubric, or out of an article. In my Health Care Policy course, I have noticed that I have been struggling on providing feedback on a discussion post to my classmates about a controversial topic that we all discuss that will allow us to bring in our viewpoint and broaden our perspective on a situation that is currently happening in health care. This will be crucial for my future job in the health administration field because I will have to be able to discuss and respond to co-workers, bosses, or the general public on a topic/situation that is happening.