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My First Blog Post

“You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible”
– Deepak K. Chopra

Hi Everyone

This type of class is very new to me and to be completely honest I was very scared to have to take a completely focused writing class. I have never been a good writer or much of a writer at all. I have never been able to express myself on paper like some people are able to do. So, when I found out I had to take a class dedicated to writing and expressing yourself you can imagine how scared I was. I have taken hard classes before this, but this was stepping out of my comfort zone. So instead of ignoring how I was feeling I decided to go to my advisor and talk to him about how I was feeling. He helped me see that I was actually very capable of this because I usually talk about how I feel very well and that the only difference with this class is that I just have to write down how I am feeling instead of talking about how I feel. Something my advisor suggested to me was, I treat this as a class within a class and talk to someone about what is happening in the class and for me to take notes while talking to my peer.

When it came time for me to look at my syllabi’s and get ready for my classes I actually felt pretty good about this class…until I saw the syllabus. I had a little bit of a panic attack because it seemed like I was way out of my element and was not going to be able to succeed in this class. But after looking over the syllabus again, I was able to see that it was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. Do not get me wrong I was still very worried about expressing myself and all the writing but, I felt like I would be able to have a handle on it. I also remembered that with the two degrees that I am going to have when I graduate, a Bachelor’s in Digital Forensics and an Associates in Cyber Security I would not be able to escape technical writing. In the grand scheme of thing, I am excited and scared for this class and how good it is going to be for me.

This class I feel like is going to boost my confidence with writing because this class is going to force me to write. I feel like sometimes that is the best way to learn a skill that does not come easy. For example, when someone is trying to learn a language, I have heard that going to the country and immersing yourself in the language is the best way to actually learn the language. This is because if you want something, need help going somewhere or anything at all you need to learn the language. So, to survive in the country you only have one option and that is to learn their language. So, for this class if I want to succeed in this class, I have to become a better technical writer and there is no if and or buts. This class will make me a better technical writer and just a better writer in general and that is going to be a skill that is going to be extremely useful for me in my future endeavors.

It is funny to think about how much I have actually learned from this class before my very first assignment or my very first “class”. I have learned that when things look the hard there is always a different way to look at things to make them better for you. Something else that I have come to realized, is that I cannot get in the way of my own success by not doing something that has been challenging for me in the past. Doing things that are difficult and pushing through them are the time that I learn the most and come out a better person then I was when I started.

May 1st 2020

This semester has been one of the most interesting semesters that I have ever had. First it was my first time taking a full 18 credit semester. Next I had a professor leave a quarter of the way through the semester and had to learn a whole new professor which was a massive curveball for me because I was just getting to learn the teaching style of my previous professor. Lastly, I but by far the biggest curveball by far was defiantly switching to online for all of my class for the 2^nd half of the semester. I believe that everything in this world happens for a specific reason and usually that reason is to make ourselves better as people. I also believe that we are never posed with a challenge that we can do endure and overcome.

Taking an 18-credit semester showed me a lot about who I am as a student and what I can do when I put my mind to something. I was extremely worried about that I would end up not being able to manage my time and end up having to drop a class. This caused me sever anxiety because when I transferred to Bloomsburg, I set a goal for myself and that was to graduate in 2 years for both of my college. I set this as a goal because I wanted to prove to people that if you can go to a community college that you are still able to graduate with a bachelors in 4 years and not have to go for extra years.

Now let’s talk about the challenge that caused every type of student in the country to have to face the same challenge…. COVID-19. No one has ever experienced something like this in our lifetime and no one knew what was going to happen or how we would even approach this. This put a strain on all students, and it changed the dynamic of how I was able to complete my out of class work for technical writing. The way we accomplished our group project complete changed because we were no longer able to meet in person as a group. With the help of zoom, google doc, and constantly texting back and forth about our projects. There were other challenges that we had to overcome but we were able to figure out solutions and push through.

This semester is a semester that I am going to remember forever and a semester that has made a stronger student and is going to be extremely beneficial to me in the future.

Introduce Yourself

Hi everyone, I am Chris Donegan and I am Junior and a Digital Forensics. I am a transfer student from a college in Harrisburg called HACC and studied Cyber Security. I was never the best writer in highschool or college so I am hoping this class with help me improve my writing skills and grammar. I also like how this class is online but also has parts of a at class experiences with the in person group projects. I look forward to becoming a better writer and also meeting my group mates.