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Jennifer Wong
Professor Kollross
College 1
December 13, 2015
Successes and Failures Reflection
It is almost the end of my first semester at Pasadena City College. To conclude my
eventful and stressful semester, I only need to finish all my finals. As I reflect on my semester
and my midterm reflection, I note that there are some successes and failures: one being my
success on an essay in my English 1A class and another being my failure in struggling my Math
131 class. As I stated before in my midterm reflection, my Math 131 class remained to be my
most difficult struggle in college; however, despite lacking skills in math, I really enjoyed my
English 1A class.
My most successful moment of college was when I received my essay back that I wrote
about a dialogue written by Plato and saw that I had gotten an A. The dialogue was about
philosopher, Socrates, and rhetorician, Gorgias, and my essay argued how Socrates utilized an
audience and ethos to humiliate Gorgias and win an argument. I did not expect to do so well on
the essay beforehand, because I actually had trouble writing the essay. I read the dialogue
numerous times, but I did not quite know how to argue my point, leading me to seek help on my
essay. I sought help from my professor, my peers, and the internet. For example, when I could, I
asked questions about the dialogue in class and seek others opinion on whether Socrates was
manipulative or not. In addition, I spent more than two weeks to complete the essay, because I
was constantly revising and adding more evidence and elaboration, which paid off since my
professor actually noted that I had excellent points for my argument and clear, great explanation.

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Opposed to my previous essay, I had gotten only a B+ and my professor had said I was too
opinioned and dramatic with my claims. I think I really progressed with my essays, especially
since I learned to listen to other peoples perspectives and views. Two things I learned about
myself through this success is that I need to take other peoples perspectives into consideration
because it may be helpful and that clichly, if I put more effort into something, I can be
successful. Asking questions in class and my classmates for their opinions really helped me be
not so biased and dramatic with my writing and also gave me ideas for my essay. Also, just by
the evidence of my two different essay grades and the time spent on each essay, it is evident that
hard work pays off. I learned that the more I cared about an assignment and the more work I put
into it, the better it came out and the higher my grade was.
With success, I also had a failure during my first semester of college. My least successful
moment of college is my struggle in Math 131. I had previously taken this class in high school,
yet I still struggled with it this semester, which I think upsets me the most and makes me feel
dumb. As previously stated in my midterm reflection, I struggle with math. I could not list a
success about my struggle with my Math 131 class, so I chose to speak about my English 1A
class instead. However, I can elaborate more on my failure with my college math class. Despite a
few Bs and As, I, for the life of Buddha, still am terrible at math. I currently have B- in my class
and have yet to take my final, which I am scared for. Previously stated in my midterm reflection,
I said I was aiming to raise my C to a B, but I feel like I have failed. I wanted an A to begin with
or at least a B, but earned only a B-. On the positive side, I did learn and grow from this
experience. After I had written the midterm reflection, I kept trying in my math class, such as
making study guides, seeking help from tutors, and taking better notes in class. Trying to
overcome this setback was hard and I was not fully successful. I only met my goal halfway due

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to only earning a B-. Two things I learned about myself from this experience is that I need to
prioritize my goals better and that I should seek help early before seeing signs of trouble in my
class. I should have put my math class as a priority like I did for my English 1A class and other
classes, because I let myself slip in that class. In addition, I should have been getting help from
tutors earlier rather than only seeking help when a counselor and professor told me to.