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Slade Pearce

Professor Batty

English 101

May 28, 2019

Confidence Is Key

Getting assigned a reflective essay isn’t the worst assignment I can get. I feel like I spend a

vast majority of my time in self-reflection, so an assignment like this just gives me an excuse to

put those thoughts down on a page and get a grade for it. I’ve also been spending a fair amount

of time thinking on my own writing recently thanks to this to class, and I’m grateful for the

opportunity to articulate my thoughts. Out of all the skills I learned in this class, there was one

lesson I value more than any other. While most might think that the basic techniques of essay

writing would rank highest, I believe that the inner confidence these skills helped me find are

paramount.

Coming into my second semester as a college student, I was a little nervous about this

english class. Before I started at Valley last fall, I had not been in school for a number of years

and I couldn’t tell you the last time I wrote anything meant to be viewed be another person,

much less for a grade. Any writing I had done was completely unstructured, so I was very

nervous I wouldn’t be able to measure up to the standard expected of me. I was very relieved

when the first few weeks of class were dedicated to the fundamentals of essay writing. I was

really worried an essay would be thrown at us from the very beginning and, since I hadn’t been

in school in so long, I thought I’d be behind from the start of the semester. Having the
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foundations of essay writing be the first topic we covered really helped relax my anxieties and

gave me all the tools to write a good essay when that time came.

When the time did come for the first essay, I was still a little nervous, but felt vastly more

prepared. Since I now had a solid technical fondation to fall back on, I was able to focus much

more of my attention on the actual writing. The first essay taught me a lot about my writing and

my writing habits. I spend a great deal of time conceptualizing my arguments and planning out

the flow of my essay, perhaps too much time. My overthinking tendencies and my personal

anxieties can be a detriment sometimes and in hindsight I realize I should have started on the

actual writing much sooner. But once I started on the actual writing, I quickly found it was much

easier for me than I originally anticipated.

Despite all of the paranoia I had about my writing ability, I found words came much

easier than I anticipated. Most of my concerns were in my lack of understanding essay structure,

but with that out of the way, I was able to fully focus on getting my ideas across. I still had

anxieties about the quality of my writing, but I powered through. I wrote what I believed to be an

effective and acceptable essay for the first assignment and submitted it expecting a lot of

mistakes and a grade that any perfectionist with high self standards wouldn’t be pleased with.

Imagine my surprise when the feedback was very positive. Despite all of my fears, I had written

an essay to be proud of for my first college level assignment.

The positive feedback I received on that essay and the elevation of my worries about

being behind in class have helped my confidence more than I would’ve imagined. When it came

time to write the second essay, I decided to trust myself. Going into that essay with confidence in

myself and a solid foundation of learning to rely upon made it far easier than I thought it would

be. I stopped second guessing myself after every sentence and if I got worried, I reviewed the
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writing habits assignments. I followed the steps taught to me and followed through with the

arguments I believed worked best. My confidence in writing has grown with every subsequent

essay and I hope that my writing has reflected that throughout the semester. I believe that having

a solid foundation of essay writing to fall back on has allowed me to grow significantly as a

writer this semester by giving me space to let my own writing abilities shine. While foundational

tools of writing are what started me down the path, I believe the confidence I found along the

way is the most important thing I learned in this class.While I expect that I will be using the

essay writing tools quite a lot in the rest of my college career, the confidence I gained will

benefit me in more ways that I can imagine.