Acad Blog 7 Final Acad Blog

Throughout this course I have learned a lot of things that I thought I already knew. This course has taught me a lot about myself in regard to writing. I learned that my strength is writing with feeling and from the heart. I also learned my weaknesses, which are commas and semicolons. This course has given me knowledge that I use in my other courses and in my everyday writings. I find myself catching grammatical errors all over the place, even when I'm writing a quick text to a close friend.

I feel that I have improved greatly since my writing sample, which was what determined that I needed to take this class. I did not proofread my writing sample at all; this course has shown me the importance and advantages of proofreading your work. Although commas and semicolons are still my weakness, I have gotten much better at them. I am still not perfect and quite unsure at times but I'm progressing and that's what matters most to me. I am a tad bit more confident in my writing ability now that this course is coming to an end, but I am also sure that I will be contacting Prof. Aggen for help in the future. Unfortunately, time management is still a major struggle for me and I cannot say that I have improved much in that area; I will continue to work on managing my time wisely though. 

Acad Blog 6

I originally struggled with deciding what to research for my paper because I had no idea what I wanted to read or write about. I had to really dig deep to decide what I felt passionate enough about to write about. I'm also taking Basic Research Skills and wanted to be careful not to overwhelm myself with too much research between the two classes. I finally decided to do something similar to the research that I am doing for that class and that I am very passionate about. I decided to do my research paper on, how integrating multicultural counseling practices into counseling services offered to African Americans will positively affect their perception and attitudes towards counseling.

I feel very passionate about this topic because I now live in a community that is predominantly Black and I see the overwhelming need for mental health and counseling services. I see the stigma and attitudes that African Americans have towards seeking help in the counseling field. I am also a witness of the overwhelming lack of counseling services available in my community. The very few services that are available are not relatable to the people they aim to assist; because of this disconnect African Americans are not inclined to seek out the mental health care that they are in need of. I really hope to change that in some type of way one day soon. I am in school now to learn and grow so that I can be part of the change that I want to see in my community and others like it in regards to counseling and mental health issues. I would also like to help remove the stigma and negative attitudes towards help-seeking and counseling and I feel that implementing multicultural counseling practices will greatly help close the gap between African Americans and the mental health services they need.