Lauren Flores
Professor Sylvor
English 2100
December 18, 2019
My First English class Experience in College
Going into my first English class of my undergrad years I was very nervous. I have always loved my high school English classes because they were places where I can express my perspective on books, but something I knew this classes lacked was their help with grammar. When viewing the syllabus for my first English class I was scared to find out that we would be working on our grammar. Looking back to the class the ultimate struggle I have had was with grammar because I did not know anything about it. I had forgotten the rules of grammar but when I started using Launchpad it was a great way to make my grammar better. Even though I feel like I grew with my grammar use I still feel I need help with capitalization, and I know it sounds easy, but it really is not for me. When creating the title for this piece I was not sure what words needed capitalization and which didn’t. Over my winter break that is what I will be working on because I do not want the struggle of not knowing to hit me during my second semester.
We did many readings in our English class, we read literacy narratives which really stuck with me the most. Hearing people’s struggle in learning how to read and write and what it meant to them made me reflect on my struggles and what it meant to me. I knew that my literacy narrative includes struggle, but I didn’t fully reflect until I saw what it meant to Chang-rae-Lee the author of Mute in an English-Only World. Seeing the author narrate how their family was treated made me, upset, angry, and then surprised because I realized that my family and I were treated the same. Literacy narratives were very interesting and made me view my work differently. Seeing people be treated different because they do not know how to speak, read, and write English made me push myself to learn English and to defend those people.
Something that was challenged the most by my new schedule was my time management because I had everything close to me before. My Elementary, Middle, and highschool were all less than 15 minutes away from me and when I had to go to Manhattan it meant an hour commute. I had my English 2100 class in the morning so I had to get up earlier than usual and make time for things like late trains and long elevator lines. My biggest difficulty became my friend when I learned how to face it. I was only late two times and even then I knew that there was a certain way to approach being late because job and school was important and had certain ways of approach.
Being a part of Baruch and SEEK I had a great support system during my first semester. I went to the writing center in the SEEK office when I needed help writing essays and my research paper. I went to SAC tutoring when I needed help with math and communication’s speech. I overall found myself with great resources at Baruch.
Overall, I think I was successful in my first year or English class and College in general. I built skulls like my use of commas and being on time. I am excited to start my next semester and see what Baruch has in store for me.
Lauren, Thanks for sharing these reflections about your first semester at Baruch. I think many of your peers could identify with some of the challenges of adjusting to college that you describe here. Thanks for all your hard work and contributions to class this semester. I appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts and respond to your peers’ comments. As we get closer to the next presidential election, I will also continue to think about how young people can become more politically active and engaged, so thanks for choosing such an important research topic. Have a wonderful winter break, and please come say hello when we are back in January. I will give you a 5-minute lesson on the rules of capitalization!
Professor Sylvor