Entry 6: Feedback Time

 

    Feedback is awesome!

    
    People will probably call my ideas weird, but they are really what I think. Feedback is complimentary of my skills and accomplishments. Feedback also reveals flaws in my performance that I must confront and improve. In life, I know that I will never always get positive feedback to the point there will be occasions when I disagree with the comments I receive. However, I've discovered that embracing such feedback allows me to be a better version of myself.

DePauw's first-year seminar classes are designed in a unique way. For their first semester of college, first-year students were chosen to a class at random. Depending on the class, each first-year student concentrates on a different topic, but we all have the same goal in mind: to improve our college writing skills. As a result, we have a lot of reading and writing assignments in this class, which means we get a lot of feedback on our writing skills.

I wanted to share one of my small, positive experiences from my First-Year seminar. I was one of three international students in my First-Year Seminar class; everyone else in the group was a domestic student. When I first realized this, I must admit that I was a little anxious since I immediately wondered how I was going to keep up with the other students for whom English was their first language. My first assignment was to write an essay in response to the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Since the subject was so vast, I recalled that it took me about half a day to complete and still I didn't feel confident. To make matters worse, our professor wants us to read other students' writings. After reading some of my classmates' papers, I was honestly even more scared. I was discouraged since I thought my peers' papers were finer. When our lecturer provided us his evaluation, I was ultimately astonished by my accomplishment. Not only did I obtain a fantastic mark, but my professor said I was at the top of my class. I received a lot of compliments on the work for my analytical abilities. Although I also receive small grammar corrections, I was swamped with praise for my improving writing skills.

When I was feeling down about my writing abilities, I remembered this moment. Having that brief moment to think back helped me get through many tough circumstances, not only in my writing. It made me value compliments more, since they can make someone's day so much better. I enjoy receiving feedback because it allows me to receive small compliments that brighten my day.

link to Olympic Journal