Reflection essay
After studying one semester of Pathway classes, I have encountered a lot of challenges caused by being an international student in a foreign country. However, going through those days, I have conducted a great improvement no matter in study, my student life or work.
In my academy, I have learnt the importance of team spirit. For example, I had an assignment in my EAP class which is a group presentation of analyzing an research article. At that time, we studied and analyzed the essay together, discussed what we should do in the presentation, distributed different parts of work for each student, and helped each other to complete and improve his or her presentation. It is no doubts that there must be several difficulties in the processes, such as some work being postponed because of the absences of the group member during the discussion, arguments between some group members, and the lack of time and places to gather and work. However, since having the spirit of team working, persistence and patience, we conquered the problems by devoting our best efforts to work and help each other, finally, we achieved a good presentation and obtained the highest score in the class. From this task, I can not only learn how to do a presentation, but also work with others, which could practice my skills of cooperation, presentation and interaction. What’s more, it makes me be a better student, also a better team member. In the future, I will have many opportunities to work with different colleagues, this experience makes me gain the understanding the importance of team spirit, which will be used in enormous places. The second example is, through studying PROV class in the pathway, I have learnt how to take a good advantage of diverse academic resources. In that class, we were assigned to find out some workshop in school, which need us to introduce the activities to the classmates after taking part in. This assignment let me grasp the skills of exploring the useful academic resources, communicate with others in the activities, and make good use of school resources. This is essential for an international to adjust the local life, because through the ways of finding different resources, attending more activities, and communicate to the students can benefit us to improve our knowledge of culture, English proficiency, being more familiar with local situation in United States and so on. In the future, finding useful information is keen factor for students to study, for workers to perform better in the jobs. Therefore, to better understand the skills could pave the way for our future.
In another aspect, as international students, we may face to the adaption issues everyday while living in a new environment. They may include the problems of manners, housing, culture shock, religion and so on. To study in the pathway make me better adjust the life in United States due to several reasons. First, I have a lot of classmates who come from many different countries, which enhance my knowledge of various culture and the sharing information from others boardden my horizon. Second, through making friends with local students, I gain the knowledge of local culture and manners, which make me more as an insider of the country. Last but not least, solving the housing problem is also significant for my own life. Consequently, as I learnt before, these skills are effectively assist me to adapt the life here, moreover, they can be used as long as I stay in United States.
In the working aspect, I have been working as an HR assistant in George Mason University. Owning the working experience in a new environment enrich me as a sophisticated worker in U.S., which also pave my way for my future to work outside the campus.
To conclude, studying in the pathway make me gain a lot of progresses as a better student, worker or human being. There are more and more I could learn from it in the future, I will develop what I learned and keep trying my best to every brand new day.