Hi, my name is Astrid I am from Tegucigalpa, Honduras but have been currently living in Maryland for about thirteen years now. Throughout my first couple of years I had to take ESOL classes to improve my English-speaking and writing skills. Coming to a different country was hard and a difficult transition. But with the help of my family and teachers I was able to achieve my goal learn English and continue my education.
I graduated from Bethesda Chevy Chase High school in 2012, I applied to University of Maryland my senior year unfortunately, my grades and SAT scores were not UMD standard. I decided that I would go to community college to increase my GPA and take all my general course to transfer to UMD. I always told myself I will strive to go to my dream school UMD just because I did not get in the first time I will the second time around. To accomplish my vision I had to make changes in my life such as study more, put effort and dedication to school. I attended Montgomery College for 2 years and found my passion for becoming a speech pathologist. I graduated with my associates and applied to UMD. The second time I applied I got accepted. Being accepted gave me a sense of pride and accomplishment in my life and for my family.
Now that I am in UMD I decided to major in Hearing and Speech Science. In this major I will need attend graduate school to become a speech pathologist. Since I was a child I was always below average in school. In elementary school I was diagnosed with ADD and speech language disorder called cluttering. These two diagnostics weighted me down and made me feel different and abnormal. I had to attend speech therapy to help with my speech disorder. With the help of my therapist I was able to overcome my disorder that was my calling, I wanted to be a speech pathologist. I want to help children and adults with speech and language problems overcome them just as I did.
In college, writing style is formal, and rhetorical in every class that I have taken and believe will take is required to write in these 2 formats. Throughout the years as English being my second language writing in general has always been hard. Grammar and sentence structure, and punctuation has been an obstacle for me to overcome. I know my area of weakness and am aware of strategies I can take to improve. I use basic English books to refer back to while writing papers. In speech and hearing field I can be work in schools, hospitals and clinical practice. In my major the writing style will have to be formal. Especially when writing reports on patients and record of improvements, tips, notes and techniques. With the practice of writing formal in college will help in my field in the future. Practice makes perfect and writing formal as much as possible will help me improve and be able to write.
As I mentioned formal writing has been an issue but, writing poetry is not. A strategy my speech therapist mentioned to me was write poetry, write my emotions, concerns and dreams all down in a composition book. The more I used this technique the more my writing improved. The more I wrote the better I got in writing. I was able to perform one of my poems on stage. Poetry is a type of writing style for me that I excel, it’s a way that I use to help my writing and put ideas down on paper. It’s my own creative outline that I use and I am able to connect ideas and make formal and rhetorical papers.
akorte1 