Final Blog: Transformative Learning

After finishing all the research for this course, I changed because I now automatically use Google Scholar rather than Google when doing academic resource searches. Before taking this course, most of my classes provide academic resources for me. All I need to do is reading and annotating. However, Writing 39C is the first course that requires me to research and find nearly all resources myself. This experience has largely enhanced my academic article searching skills. The other thing I learn from this course is to write an extended, academic essay. Writing 39C provides me the first time to write the whole academic essay myself with exceeding 4,000 words. I have to admit that this has been hard, and I did have thought about quit along the way. However, I did it. This course definitely helped me to be more patient and focused.

Two major problems I encountered and still need to work out in the future are time management and the ability to deal with new technology. Time management is a long-lasting problem since the quarantine to me. After we started all courses online, it is hard to stay focused on scheduled lecture time in my house because there are so many distractions. Sometimes, I cannot even keep my house quiet during midterms and finals. Before the COVID-19 crisis, I do not usually have this issue because I love to finish my assignments far before the deadline. Hopefully, when the COVID-19 crisis is over, I could regain my old habit and discard time management issues. As for the technical issue, I do not have it before since nearly all of my courses only require me to use Canvas. However, by taking Writing 39C, I use Google Docs to turn in my assignments for the first time, which helped me learn more about using Google Docs. I also learned to make my own website for the first time. Although the Wix website process speed is low on my computer, the website-making process itself is fun and contribution to me.