TaTyana Williams

Throughout the first semester of my college career, I ran into a lot of obstacles and the literacy and learning education class helped me over those obstacles. Right now, I am studying psychology with a minor in broadcasting journalism. I’m not sure what I want to be after I graduate, but I know I want to work with people. I either want to have my own television show or my own radio show, my dream is to become the next Oprah Winfrey. I have some big shoes to fill. Becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist I would have to read and write a lot of articles and documents. As you can see I have dreams of becoming something better than what I am now, and in order to do that I need to set a purpose and stay focused on my goals. My grandmother is a psychologist and she has a very busy schedule, so I would also have to adjust my pace on what I’m doing, but the main reading secret that is important in any career is to remove all distractions. I plan on helping a lot of people, so in order for me to work at the best of my ability I would have to stay focused and distance myself from all the distracting things.

College is very different from high school, the classes are fast paced and there is more work. I came into college thinking it was going to be a piece of pie, but of course I was wrong. In high school I was a straight A student, and English and writing was my subject. But after getting—what I thought was the best paper I ever written—back with a “No Grade”, that was my breaking point. I burst into tears, because I never seen that before and I could only think of the worse. I was starting to think I wasn’t good enough and that I didn’t know how to write a Modern Language Association paper. After I calmed down, my professor explained that I used to wrong format for the paper. It was an analysis paper and not an MLA paper and she gave me and chance to rewrite the paper in the correct format. In high school MLA was all I have been taught, so I assumed that was what we had to do. Throughout the semester we had to write different varieties of essays, and I learned quite a lot. After getting my second grade back, which was an A, my confidence was sky high. But since then I paid more attention during the lectures, because every week we had to write a different paper. I kept getting better grades and I was proud of myself. I’m looking forward to next semester because I have two writing classes. If this would ever happen again, I would probably ask questions even if I’m not confused, but just be sure I’m doing an assignment the right way. I wouldn’t take the “No Grade” back because dealing with that experience made me a better person and built my confidence. It was just what I needed to be successful this semester.