Hello, my name is Caroline Meili, I am a freshman at the University of Arizona and I hope you all enjoy getting to know me and my experience a little bit better!

This class was an intimidating one for me. In high school I was in rather challenging literature classes where all we ever did was annotate books. So when I came to college I had no idea what I was about to face. Although reading books every week was not on the ternary, all pot the other projects we learned about the first week scared me more than reading a book. The skills we needed had requirements that my previous English class had not prepared me for, so I was nervous about what was to come. All I knew is that by the end of this course I was determined to somehow grow and become a better writer. So that in the future, I will have the proper skills to be able to tackle any task that comes my way.
Once things started to really kick in full gear, I quickly realized that although this class would be a lot of work, it was at least really interesting. For the first time I was learning something I was interested in, which is something I really enjoyed in the annotated bibliography. I feel as if through this project I became really proficient in being able to use a variety of research methods such as books and websites (SLO 2C). This was something which previously I had been really not great at, so becoming more comfortable with library databases and finding resources was something I was proud of. It was a new skill, which the annotated bibliography really made me better at, and for that I am really grateful, especially since it is such a vital skill.

One of the most valuable things I learned this year was how critical peer review is. There is no way that the proposal I created would have been so successful if I had not gotten an immense amount of feedback on it. Not only did I learn to take the feedback and use it to enhance my writing, but I also learned to take peer review as a positive thing and not a negative thing (SLO 4E). It was especially nice how professor Lycke would comment on everything we turned in with positive feedback and a few things we could work on. It was also helpful to have so many discussion posts to be able to get more feedback on assignments. Another helpful thing peer review made me more comfortable with was utilizing think tank. At the beginning of the year, I thought this was a service I would not use, but as I became more comfortable with others reading my work I started sending my papers in to think tank to get extra help.

Addressing an audience, was something I really struggled with, in high school and in college. It has always been really hard for me, but throughout the semester I have realized that I have actually gotten a lot better at appropriately addressing the audience (SLO 1D). When working on the personal statement I did research on the company addressing the scholarship I was applying to and found out their morals and realized mine matched theirs. While this might seem minute, it was something I had never done before. I have finally learned how to properly format my papers and target and address and audience. This was also something that I got a lot of experience doing in the proposal since it was critical I addressed the correct audience.

This class has taught me a lot of valuable lessons in which none of my previous classes have. I feel as if I have grown in more ways than I could have imagined. I have grown as a critical thinker, a researcher, a writer, and honestly in so many more ways. I learned that although I may not be the best writer, or the best at targeting the audience I am more comfortable with myself in all of these categories. All the projects in this class helped me become more comfortable with myself as a writer. Which is more than what I could ask out of a class. Professor Lycke gave us really interesting projects that I feel give us skills which we will definitely need to utilize in our future. More than ever, I feel as if I have gained a new level of confidence in my skills as a writer.

Thank you,
Caroline Meili