General Long Answer

1. What are you better at now than you were at the end of the previous academic year? Name all of the ways that these improvements were made possible.
   • I’m better at communicating with my professors. I believe a big part of it has to do with the fact that I happen to be more comfortable with my professors at City College. My last semester was actually at Queens College and I didn’t feel supported by my professors as much as I do at CCNY. I feel more welcomed here and I also feel like my professors have a genuine concern for my wellbeing and my performance. Once that feeling was established, I felt more confident asking for help, expressing what parts of my academic career I felt insecure about, and making compromises and agreements with my professors in order to end the semester strong.
2. What are you most proud of from the past academic year? Why does this make you proud?
   • I’m proud of the fact that I showed up enough to leave an impression on my professors and make some friends, even though they were more like acquaintances. I have not had a good college experience so far and have transferred schools every year, so I haven’t made any friends or relationships with professors that have stuck. Not that I necessarily believe I’ll see or talk to any of the people I’m thinking of, but it helped me feel more confident in my classes.
3. What went well this past academic year? What tools, supports or resources aided your success?
   • By far, the best resource I could’ve been given was the FIQWS 10015 plenary session. I learned about fellowships, internships, financial literacy, college research, campus resources like the financial aid office, the advising office, and more. I was able to seek help when I had issues processing my financial aid. I’ve spoken several times at length with advisors and instructors of the course to plan my future semesters and possible internships and fellowships before I graduate. 
4. What did not go well this past academic year? What was missing that made this experience challenging or undesirable?
   • My attendance, and it’s entirely my fault. I was under a lot of stress this semester. I had technically lost my job right before the semester began and had just been transferred to another location where we were understaffed to the point that I was making half of what I did at my original location. I live alone and support myself almost entirely, so that was a big stressor for me. I had also just lost a very close family member the month before, and even if you grieve in silence, that can weigh on you. I had classes twice a week and work every other day, so I often skipped school because I felt physically and emotionally exhausted, and needed a break. My poor attendance caused me to drop a class and fall behind in every one of my classes. I’m struggling to end the semester but because I have understanding professors and I’ve communicated my situation to them, I’m working extra hard to make sure I make it through. I hope that with this newfound confidence and better financial security than I had at the beginning of the semester, I can move on to my fall semester with less weighing on me and prioritize school again.
5. What insight did you gain about your own needs for mitigating challenges? Where or how can you fulfill these needs in the future?
   • I learned that I need more structure than I think I do. I need a concrete plan for my weekly responsibilities. A schedule of classes isn’t enough. I need a schedule of assignments and set time frames for myself to work, otherwise I’ll leave it to the last minute. I charted a weekly schedule for one of my classes where I set aside time for work, rest, class, study, and household chores. I think those are the best categories for the different kinds of responsibilities I have. It really helped me put into perspective how I was using my time and how I can use my time more intuitively without feeling like I’m constantly working.
6. What did you learn from overcoming challenges? How will you remember what you learned and apply it when a similar issue arises?
   • I learned not to limit myself to my failures. We did a lot of introspective work in FIQWS 10015. We had to do reflections on imposter syndrome and create elevator pitches and personal statements. In fact, for that first assignment, I actually wrote that I don’t think I can experience imposter syndrome because I have no successes or achievements to feel undeserving of. I realized as I wrote these things that I may not be in the same place as others my age or in my position, but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure or I have nothing to offer. Everyone’s life experiences are unique and help shape them into the people they are in different ways. I thought low of myself because I’ve never done an internship in a field relative to my career, that the longest job I’ve had was in a restaurant, but picking apart my skills from these experiences for the personal statement showed me that there is value in everything you learn, regardless of where you learned it. So, when I feel discouraged, or like a failure.
7. When did you feel happiest or most at ease this year? How can you experience those moments more frequently?
   • I felt the most at ease when I declared my concentration and when I declared my minor. Both of these events were triggered by really insightful advising appointments that I had had. One of my advisors comforted me when I expressed concern about whether or not I’m still on track. I realized I may have to graduate in 5 years rather than the standard 4, and she told me she also graduated in 5 years when she was getting her bachelor’s degree, and that made me feel better. My advisors helped me work with the director of the international studies program to apply more of what I’ve studied at my prior schools towards my major, and even pointed out that I’ve done considerable work in anthropology and could add a minor in it to my degree. Advising is a really underrated tool. It can help put things into perspective when you’re worried about something, especially if you don’t know a lot about what you have an issue with.
8. What moments are you proud of? What can you do to celebrate yourself?
   • I’m proud that I was able to submit all of my major assignments this semester. Granted, they were all late, but they all made it in. I’m not going to celebrate myself, though. That’s the bare minimum and I know I can do better. I know that there are others who struggle like me but can manage their time and their responsibilities better. So, I won’t celebrate, I’ll just keep working hard to improve myself and my behavior and become the best student I can be.
9. What new ideas, information, resources or research made a positive difference for you this year? What was helpful about these things?
   • International studies is the only concentration I’ve ever been this sure of. Finally working towards a degree in international studies as opposed to taking whatever classes I wanted in my freshman year or double majoring to simulate this major feels so liberating. My classes, INTL 201 and ARAB 301 have also helped me solidify my choice to study this major. I’ve never taken a literature course before so I will definitely say I struggled a lot but it showed me a whole new side of my passion about Middle Eastern politics. Through the books we read and the essays and presentations we conducted, I found that a lot of political commentary is done through art, through literature, and I’m able to enjoy it through an artistic lens when reading news articles gets tiring!

Course Specific Short Answer

1. How has your understanding of the meanings behind (and usefulness of) genre, medium, author’s intent, and audience changed?
   • I’ve always been a more research-leaning writer, so I really enjoyed writing the news feature article, but my understanding of genre, medium, and audience was really shifted by our in-class discussions where we studied different forms of communication and discovered on our own how they were different from each other and how that made them more or less useful in different circumstances. It’s kind of like when you study physics, and instead of learning a new formula, you derive it from what you already know first, then you can use the formula more intuitively in the future because you know where it came from and why it’s useful.
2. How has your understanding of how to navigate different writing situations/rhetorical situations (different genres to write in or audiences to write for etc.) changed?
   • I usually write as if the audience is myself. Now I’m able to incorporate more nuance to my writing especially if it’s on a complex subject. Subconsciously, I think of every possible reader that could end up with my work, who they might be and what they might know or not know before reading what I’ve written. Then, my writing becomes both personalized and generalized. I’m able to reach more types of readers by being mindful of them while I’m writing.
3. How has your writing process changed or evolved after this semester and how has the class affected this process?
   • My writing process hasn’t changed much, but as I said, the class has definitely made me more cognizant of who my reader is as I’m writing. Rather than writing completely in my own voice and throwing around terms and techniques I know that I know, I think about all the possible readers that could come across my writing, and I end up writing a more “reader inclusive” piece.
4. You produced a work that had you create for a new audience: explain (using genre, medium, and audience understanding) how that was effective for the audience you chose.
   • The audience I chose were fellow college students, but specifically those with little connection to the Palestinian struggle or social activism on campus. The genre was political advertising because I know that no matter how much you’re invested in politics, you’ve seen a political ad. Whether it be a sign encouraging you to vote, or an infographic you scrolled past on Instagram or Facebook, we’ve all seen them. That’s how I knew I’d grab the attention of a college student. I needed to use bold words, bright colors, and a powerful message. I needed to give just enough information for my audience to know generally what I was talking about, but not too much where they’d get bored looking at it, and I gave the option to read the feature article I based it off of. I think this genre works hand-in-hand with written work. I will call myself a politics-minded student, and I know that when I see an interesting political poster, I want to know more, but I often don’t know where to look or where to start. So I gave them a starting point!
5. Knowing what you know now (from having taken this class) how would you approach a situation in the future in which you were asked to write in a new genre and for a new audience?
   • I would definitely create a chart akin to the one provided to me for my new genre/audience proposal. I’d ask myself the same questions: Who is my audience? What genre will appeal to them most? When, where, by whom, and how is this genre used? What reaction am I looking to gain out of my audience? Combine all those answers and you have a pretty clear plan for what to do.
6. How has your understanding of the research process–how it is and how it should be conducted–been affected by this course? And how might this help in the future?
   • I learned a lot about interviewing from writing my feature article. I definitely want to incorporate more of that into my writing, especially in the near future when I start to get more in-depth about the subject I’m studying. My field can be pretty hands-on and I know I specifically want to work on changing and improving other people’s circumstances. Interviewing properly not only strengthens my research but also strengthens my understanding of my subject. There is only so much I can learn from news articles and peer reviewed articles, and so much more I can learn about those directly affected or experiencing the subject I’m researching.
7. How has your ability to compose your own positions, arguments or stances been affected by the course?
   • Taking a position is half the battle when writing for the humanities. Eliminating bias is another challenge. The course has helped me formulate a more concrete structure about what I want to talk about and why, and how I’m obtaining this information. Strong evidence is nothing when it’s supporting a weak argument, so finding the holes in your argument and filling them with objectives is important.