So long! My mondays and wednesdays are finally free!

The end of the semester is here, the time has gone by fast and really seemed like we just started. The people in the class were awesome. I don’t think I have met a better group of people. The students in our class have come from all different walks of life. We had people from all over the country and some that were born and raised in Virginia Beach. I believe a relationship even started with two of my fellow class mates, which is kind of fascinating. I hope the best for them. I hope they make it.                             

It was a bit of an oddity to have two home schooled people in our class. For at least one, it was his first college experience. I felt a little bad for him because he was not used to classroom setting and I believe it made him feel un-comfortable at times. I think there are a lot of stereotypes pertaining to homeschooled kids. If they wouldn’t have told me they were home schooled I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

I have a lot of respect for my instructor. I think it is a cool thing that he went through the community college ranks all the way up to his Masters Degree. I hope to achieve the same thing one day. I liked Mr. Gasparo’s teaching style. Most of the community college teachers remind me of high school teachers. Mostly because they actually teach high school and teaching community college is just a second job. I liked how it wasn’t all things taught from the book. I did feel that there was too much homework. I found it hard to keep up at times. I think it was mostly because the projects for this class took up a lot of time and time I do not have a lot of. I also could have dealt with less, days off at the end of the semester. I feel it caused a rush to get homework and projects completed when perhaps we could have ended the semester with 1 or 2 less assignments for the grade book.

I particularly liked the lessons of rhetorical appeals. I had no understanding of what they were until I entered this class. I think that has helped me develop my writing style.  I learned about MLA formatting and how much I really hate it. Especially, when it comes to citing materials. I greatly prefer APA style of writing to MLA.  My favorite assignment was the argument essay. I liked doing the research and was motivated to complete a great paper. I also was able to refresh on my library reference skills since I have not used them in about 7 years when I was last in school.

I would have liked to learn more about citations. I felt I walked away a little weak on that. I also needed a little bit more confidence on developing thesis statements.  But all in all, I know I will be just fine in my next composition class. I have to tools to find the information that I need.        Nick