In discussions and conversations, I help to build and extend understanding by voicing my opinion when I believe it to be necessary. Communicating, especially within a group setting, is one of my weaker areas and one of my goals this year is to strive to be more sociable and ensure that I say something when something doesn’t make sense or isn’t correct. Throughout my years of schooling, it has always been passively mentioned that it would benefit me and my peers’ learning if I participated more in class talks and gave my input on topics. In this year, I hope to overcome this general shyness and develop a greater understanding of classroom topics through discussion.

When I need to work collaboratively with people I don’t know well, I typically become very reclusive and quiet as I am uncomfortable talking to those I do not know well, let alone collaborating with them. This has been an issue in the past, where my refusal to say much has lead to the team making poor decisions that could have been avoided had I said something. Additionally, I also tend to take over large portions of the project due to my uncertainty regarding the abilities of my groupmates, which does not always produce fantastic results. Because of this, it is my goal this year to be able to work better with teams of people I am unfamiliar with and focus on collaborating effectively. If I can overall better my communication, it can make group projects come together a lot better and make me an overall better student.

When I am sad, angry or frustrated, taking a break helps me be more productive or calm. I find that I often become overly frustrated when faced with a concept I cannot immediately grasp, which has led to me becoming completely unable to focus and enraged. Although I have been like this most of my life, I hope to change that this year and take a much calmer approach when it comes to learning and developing an understanding for new concepts. Usually, when I take a break from focusing on whatever it is that is causing the problem, I find that I can come back to it in a few minutes with a clearer mindset that is ready to accept the new information. The issue is that I often cannot recognize myself becoming frustrated until it has gone out of control, so I hope to be able to realize when this is going to happen and take a break before it can escalate. This will make me a much calmer person and also allow me to learn concepts easier.