Throughout my time in high school, I had written several essays and given multiple oral presentations. While my presentation skills did not improve much until my Public Speaking class, my writing skills had constantly progressed. However, I always knew that my essays and speeches could have been better. I was not exactly sure what to change, but with college slowly approaching, I started to believe that there was more I could do to further develop those skills. Now that I am in school again and enrolled in a Transdisciplinary Communication course, I have a list of goals I want to reach during my time in this class.
The English classes that I took in high school helped me learn how to effectively communicate my ideas through papers and essays. Unfortunately, finding creative ways to display my knowledge has never been my strong suit. I often found myself repeating the same words or phrases throughout a single paper. So, my first objective would be to widen my vocabulary in a way that allows me to show my understanding of a certain subject without sounding bland or repetitive. I want to be able to write a compelling argument or illustrate a talking point in a way that shows my full understanding of the issue at hand. But my goals for writing do not just stop at the writing itself.
Another issue I came across in high school was finding the right sources for accurate information. I was told early on that Wikipedia was not a reliable source when looking for facts. When I reached my junior year of high school, I was also told that the Google search engine, as a whole, was not the best place to look for dependable data. After that, I started using the school search engine for information on essay topics, which was even more difficult since the school search engine never had enough sources to write an entire essay with. As a result, my essays began to feel emptier, like I was just filling the gaps in info with long, drawn-out sentences. I know now that I will need to discover better ways to find credible sources for college essays. Whether that be through finding more educational search engines or exploring the Lovejoy Library. Either way, broadening my number of sources will be beneficial for me going forward. Along with that, being able to communicate newfound knowledge with others is also a skill that I will need to further develop.
Learning new things and developing them into my daily life has always been a great skill of mine. Sharing those topics with others has never been my strong suit though. I often feel unqualified to teach others on a subject matter that I just recently learned about. Even though I know on the inside that I have enough knowledge to share my newfound information with my peers. My hope is that being a part of CODES will help me learn to engage in conversations with a group of people who have a similar knowledge base as I do. So that not only can I teach others what I have learned, but so that they can in turn teach me things that I might not have known previously. Moreover, I am also hoping to be able to take charge of many of these discussions.
I have never been the kind of person to take the leadership role during group discussions in high school. Part of that goes back to my fear of being too inexperienced to lead a group in certain conversations. I have always wanted to be the man who speaks up first and is able to represent a small number of people in front of a larger audience, but I was just used to standing in the background throughout high school. However, CODES gives me the perfect opportunity to develop these skills. One of my goals is to start speaking up more when a topic that I have some knowledge about is brought up. Overtime, this will give me the confidence to take charge in a group setting, even though I will not always have the answer. I want to be able to assume a leadership role inside and outside of the classroom. This brings me to my last main goal for my time in CODES, which is to be able to not only think like a leader but talk like one too.
I would say that I have always been a good writer, especially in high school. The one thing I have struggled with in English classes is giving oral presentations. One thing my Public Speaking class taught me is that the way you draft a paper is different from the way you give a speech. However, I still spent most of that class trying to give speeches as if they were an essay I was writing. I want to adapt to different techniques of presenting to perfect my speaking skills while I am in college. Once again, the CODES program is my chance to improve on those skills before I need to use them in my regular adult life.
My abilities in writing, speaking, and collaborating were constantly improving throughout my high school years. Even though some of those skills did not develop to the level that I had wished for, I still have time to work on them. No matter what kind of job I get, I know that it will involve sharing ideas with people through writing or speaking. Which is why I am excited about the CODES program. This is my opportunity to practice my abilities and learn what exactly I need to improve on before my time in college is over. Thankfully, I already know exactly where to start.