Semester Reflection

As an SFSU freshmen, I started my college career taking the English 114 course, one of the three First Year Composition courses I’ve chosen. English 114 is a one semester course with a class consisted of about 20 students, and for an 8AM class that was better than a 60 student lecture. In this semester long journey I felt I was able to learn about many things that I was interested in, as well as looking back at my life in a different point of view. I didn’t expect this course to be well embedded in research and how the work was very collaborative to a certain extent. This was one of the courses that has also enabled me to interact with a majority of my classmates without freaking out over interacting with people. Working online through the forums has helped me a whole lot, the idea of being able to look at other people’s acted as a crutch to brainstorm my own ideas and create my own work.

Being a student in this specific class, I learned of many different ways to take notes and write annotations when it comes to different reading assignments that are assigned. There’s the double entry journal that we typically frequent that I’ve found the most helpful and I think I might bring this to other classes when it comes to larger reading assignments. A double entry journal consists of half a page of quotes and ideas that stand out to the reader and the second half consists of their reaction of the notes that they took in the latter. In my own opinion, I think this is kind of a great way to take notes if you want the main points to stick in your head. There’s a correspondence to the reading and your reaction, and I think that is very swell.

I think ongoing into the rest of my college semester, I might start working with the OWL’s strategy on annotations. I think it might come very useful when it comes to research projects in the long run. It would be easier to summarize the reading overall with the main points and maybe just highlight key words and terms to look out for. Compared to the double entry journal, it might be a tad bit neater and completeness to read. A double-entry journal might consist of loose notes and quotes, whereas an annotation is the overall reading.

SFSU provides opportunities for students to select or teach a one credit course revolving different interests that a student might have. Things can range from Fanfiction as Literature courses to Hindi for Beginners and even a course for being creative in the Sims. Personally if I weren’t going to be teaching the class myself, I would be interested in taking Nap Time; the study of sleep. From that course I feel as though I can revisit my knowledge from past AP Psychology courses and connect the information to humans and their sleeping patterns. I think with that course in particular we can explore brain scans along with talking about dreams that really interest me.

If I were to choose a course from a teaching standpoint, I think I might teach about food culture. Although I am not an expert on all different kinds of cuisine, I think I am a bit interested in teaching about food from around the world as well as healthy eating options. I would prefer to co-teach with someone who is also helping with the class. I feel like teaching in a pair can enhance the learning experience with different knowledge coming from each person.

As a teacher for a course that involves food, I think we might take field trips to different eatery locations across different neighborhoods. Compare how each community developed their own taste of food and probably look into the history behind the community. I think if people looked into how their food is made and how it came to be that they would be more appreciative of the food that they eat. I feel like in this course we should talk with the people behind smaller establishments to hear about their story as well. As a student who is interested in food, I had the opportunity to start an internship at a small restaurant, but sadly wasn’t able to finish it, was able to see the life from a kitchen.

I think it’s just something interesting that many people should experience at least once in their lifetime, because it is so different from just working retail or in an office. It’s pretty lively and practically anyone can try it and anything can happen in a restaurant. This course can also give the opportunity to cook for ourselves with healthier options from, for example the farmers market. The course would be a fun learning experience that can glue people together who is really into food.