Reflective Essay

Gracyn Covey

English 1302

Professor Hammett

Reflective Essay

Word Count: 523

 

Reflective Essay

            Irony would be the word I would use to describe my experiences in this course. My subject for all three of my essays was depression, specifically in younger people. I had experience in this topic, so it felt easy to convey the real feelings of depression. Starting the semester on a high note from my previous composition class, I felt confident. Soon would I then fall victim to true irony, as the very subject I wrote about became what I was overcome by.

           This course has improved my writing skills, shown especially during Project One. Project One was the peak of my writing career during this class, as I had been completely motivated to succeed. I had put in plenty of time and effort into my research and writing, and consequently got a remarkable score. That motivated me to continue to learn and improve my writing skills to continue to achieve the best score possible. From a young age I always had a passion for writing, and I found it therapeutic to convey my thoughts onto a screen. This made writing come as a second-nature to me, though there was one thing standing in my way: grammar.
           Grammar has always been my main topic of struggle. No matter how many times I was taught what a sentence fragment was, I could never quite grasp the concept. This is where my essays began to fall apart as my tone was strong, but my grammar was lacking heavily. While I do admittedly still struggle with grammar, this course has helped me understand some of my common faults. 

           Before this class I took Composition One over the summer, which forced me to learn a large amount of information in a small amount of time. I learned a lot during that class, but this class made learning a more natural progression. The topic of absurdism was new to me, and I enjoyed learning about topics I otherwise would never have looked into. The Plague essay was one that I had been procrastinating on; but once I had watched the movie I felt inclined to learn more about the work. This class has motivated me to seek out more niche topics like The Plague, and to learn more about them. This course was a much more refreshing experience than the fact-paced course I took over the summer, and I have improved both as a writer and as a person.

           It is ironic that I have now written three essays over depression, and how to combat it during this course, and yet I found myself being unable to do so. Does that make my essays untrue? In my opinion, it only strengthens them. Depression can be very different for many different individuals, someone else with depression in this same scenario could have finished all three essays in one night. As such there is no true cure for depression, no one way of solving the epidemic. The only thing we can do is power through, because there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.