I had no idea what to expect as this was my first semester of college. Furthermore, because everything was new to me, I had no idea if I would be able to succeed while everything in my personal life was falling apart. But, with the help of my new friends at school and my professors, I believe I passed this semester, even if only with a C or B grade average. Despite the difficulties, it was ultimately a very instructive and influential experience.

I’ve remembered our first assignment, we had to write an essay based on Language and Literacy using several personal essays like Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”. I can recall when writing that essay that i felt so happy writing about the struggles of an immigrant mother and share her tale as i myself come from an immigrant family too. I felt to relatable to Tan as she describes her childhood helping her parents with adult problems, being the translator for your parents as you wonder what they’re talking about and lastly the depression one felt when realizing that your parents problems are now yours since there is a language barrier between them and society. After writing my essay, i thought that i did horrible on the essay, although i passed it i needed to improve my wording, spelling errors and most notably, adding more content.

This course was surprisingly fair than all my other courses since this class was more fun to be in. The Professor was engaging with her class which in turn created a scholarly atmosphere that everyone seem to enjoy. When i needed help on my homework, i could always go the professor and she’d help me out with my needs.

After we finished our first essay, we started to work on our rhetorical essay. The class was assign to choose one of the reading provided to us and looked for any rhetorical devices the author used to make her essay more impactful and better. I again used “Mother Tongue” because i liked her work and was more familiar to it than the other readings. In total, I found that most of her essay was made by using Pathos and Ethos to draw the reader in. Tan also uses examples of the mistreatment her mother and her had to endure all because her mother didn’t spoke English. I felt more at ease when writing that essay since i was familiar with the subject of rhetorical devices so it was in my opinion, an easy essay to turn in. i i added more content and more details to the essay which helped me a lot.

Lastly but not least, our research essay was the toughest essay i ever wrote because i had to hold the readers attention to my work but that was hard to do when i overly complicate myself with using big words and making my essay too boring. Typing that essay took forever due to personal problems and finding all our information was a tad bit harder, but i had the added advantage in putting my own personal experiences to add more content and be relatable to other immigrant students that might have gone through what i’ve been through. I do hope that i had improve my writing skills, the need to add more details to my essays.