First Year Seminar 
Taking a first-year seminar at the college is a unique experience. I was impressed by how students during a year had become responsible, informed, and adept at demonstrating critical reasoning and communication skills. Moreover, they prepared to becoming problem solvers, which is a feature that will enable them to make correct decisions in the future. I did not know what to expect out of my freshman year. And now I see that this course has helped me to develop a better understanding of the learning process, and acquire essential academic survival skills.
I liked that the course included many diverse topics and I received an opportunity to learn many new and interesting things. One topic that affected me the most is Anxiety and Ethics. We have read and discussed modern philosophers, creative artists, and theologians who were exploring and studying an important issue of how life is confused with the challenges of anxiety. We looked at such authors as Eric Fromm, Pema Chodrun, Viktor Frankl, Derrick Bell, and Ruth King.
Regarding my learning abilities, I consider myself to be an auditory learner because I try to dominate during a conversation. According to Kharb, Samanta, Jindal, and Singh, auditory learners like talking, which is exactly my case. I think that my learning style will fit each of the WCU modalities, because they provide such working opportunities as becoming instructor for people with disabilities, instructor for corporate programs, program director, and agency director. All these modalities are connected with people and communication, which suits auditory learners perfectly considering that they are very talkative.
The first-year seminar also helped me realize my weaknesses and strengths more clearly. My first weakness is test taking. Very often, it seems that I know everything when I am preparing at home, but when I am going to write a test it seems that all variants are possible, and I cannot decide which one is correct. The next big disadvantage is a time management, because I spend much time on unnecessary things and cannot use my time productively. That is why, staying organized is also my academic weakness. To be honest, one more issue I am concerned about is that sometimes I do not understand the assignment instructions and it really complicates my situation. I cannot think about answer if I do not understand the question.
However, I have some academic strengths, and writing papers, conducting research, and using technologies are among them. The first-year seminar class included much essay writing activities and I am very glad that I was able to improve my writing skills. One of my favorite tasks is conducting researches because it gives me an opportunity to analyze, synthesize, and connect findings to a range of other disciplines, to find out something new, and share my knowledge with others. In addition, I need to know how to use technology in order to do the research successfully but nowadays it is not a big problem.
I understand that I will be a role model for others if I turn my weaknesses into strengths, but I have to admit that it is difficult for me. That is why, I think that I need to stop focusing on my weaknesses considering that no one is perfect and to use my strengths in order not to lose a perspective. Thus, I need to work towards progress, not perfection, because only constant improvement can help me reach success in the future. Consequently, one of the ways to do it is to compare the knowledge and skills I obtained on a weekly and monthly basis to determine the level of progress I make.
Personally, I think that working collaboratively on interprofessional teams has many benefits. First of all, it deals with a communication gap. The professionals are interacting on a personal level and working together to maintain continuity of the affair. Secondly, it promotes a team mentality (Duffy, 2015). By working together, the professionals support each other in different situations. Thirdly, it empowers team members, as professionals from other disciplines are encouraged to make recommendations about patients.
After completing the course, I learned many valuable skills that will aid me on my quest of becoming a successful college student. Although I faced challenges along the way, ultimately I would try to work harder to overcome all of them in the future. I can sincerely say that my first-year seminar has fulfilled all the goals of the seminar program and that I, as a first-year student, have fulfilled the expectations set up for the first-year students.
