When I signed up for this class I didn’t really know what to expect. I assumed there would be volunteering but I didn’t know what other types of grading assignments would go along with volunteering. I also expected this class to have to do more research on community organizations as a whole and not just one specific organization. My experience is actually greater than I thought initially. I assumed that this class would be torturous and volunteering would be a tedious task that I would have to complete. Luckily, I was very wrong and my experience in this class was something I will remember. Volunteering at the Tallahassee Museum was a good match for me. This is ironic because originally I was set up to work with another organization but ending up “stuck” with the Tallahassee Museum worked out well for me.

 

 I benefitted from my community service because the particular event I helped with made me realize how much work goes into events put on by the Tallahassee Museum. These events, which they provide for the community, take months of planning and are often run by volunteers. I also learned from volunteering in general how many other people benefit from the services and exhibits provided by the Tallahassee Museum. Volunteering also made me appreciate the community as a whole and the people that help put everything together.

 

After being required to complete community service for this class I feel like I should continue volunteering within our community. As a member of our community and seeing firsthand how these organizations help other members in our community has inspired for me to continue helping. Many more people than I thought depend on the Tallahassee Museum and other organizations within the community. These organizations are sometimes low on funds and have to be mostly run by volunteers. When serving as a member of the community who hasn’t volunteered one might think that these organizations are self-sufficient, but after realizing that most are not and the benefit they receive by people volunteering is something that is hard to forget.

 

As a writer I think this class inspired me to be more relaxed when writing. I remember during the first week of school Ms. Lang mentioned that she would not grade our papers based off of grammar. I think that made it easier to write because you did not have to question if everything you were writing was in the correct format you could focus on specifically on the writing. Over the semester I believe my writing has improved. I have never been a bad writer but this class enforced free writing, and made me less nervous to write about how I felt.

The project that taught the most was probably the third project. I felt like this was an adequate project to cover our experience at the organization and sum up volunteering at our organization as a whole. I also felt like project three summarized the first two projects we worked on and kind of ended our research. Also, creating the 3 media types was a fun was to create because we could put all of the information we have learned from the past two projects into it.

 

If I had to design this class I am not sure what I would change. Maybe the length of some of the essays because I think a few could have been cut down a few pages. In the beginning all thought all of the reflective essays and journals were annoying but in the end I think it helped. We did a lot of writing in this class and I actually think that even just writing a few of those journals helped my writing.  The most important thing I have learned in this class is that any amount of writing helps. I also have learned that if you are writing about something you care about, such as the impact of the community on oneself, it makes writing easier. I feel like in this class we focused a lot on writing about what we want and that made it not so bad.