The primary trait that I lack is confidence. In my mind, others are always smarter, prettier, more driven, and just better than me. Because of this attitude, I do not usually voice my opinions, state my ideas, or take control of anything; I automatically assume that anything I say or do is wrong or stupid. Although I still need to work on strengthening my confidence, SMU’s community atmosphere, specifically the Hilltop scholars program, has given me the enormous confidence boost I need to step out of my comfort zone and make my ideas a reality. A gain of confidence through supportive communities is apparent in the films Legally Blonde, Renaissance Man, and Higher Learning because each film includes individuals who need greater self-confidence, which comes from the support of their communities. In “The Quest for Community in Higher Education,” Parker Palmer outlines specifically how community can build up confidence. Additionally, in “The SMU Community According to Etzioni,” Christiano Gallo illustrates that confidence promotes involvement, which promotes confidence. The support I feel from various members of the SMU community has provided me with experiences similar to Elle, Rago, and Malik’s and has helped me understand how Palmer’s ideas foster confidence. Also, encouragement from others has opened my eyes to how involvement can instill confidence. Community gives us somebody to lean on. Somebody to lean on gives us confidence.
Lack of support from a surrounding community can strip someone of her confidence. In Legally Blonde, Elle begins Harvard Law School with little support from her family or ex-boyfriend, Warner Huntington III. Most students do not take Elle seriously because she is a bit different from the ordinary, somber...
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...teachers in the SMU community has increased my confidence. My self-assurance is so much stronger now that maybe people will start to look to me as a source of confidence. Maybe, just maybe, people will finally see me as somebody they can lean on too.
Works Cited
Gallo, Christiano. "The SMU Community According to Etzioni." Criteria Archive. Eds. Lee Gibson et al. Dallas: SMU Department of English, 2011. Passim. Print.
Higher Learning. Dir. John Singleton. Columbia (New Deal), 1995. DVD.
Legally Blonde. Dir. Robert Luketic. Perf. Reese Witherspoon. MGM Home Entertainment, 2001. DVD.
Palmer, Parker J. “The Quest for Community in Higher Education.” Criteria 2011-2012: A Journal of First-year Writing. Eds. Mary K. Jackman and Lee Gibson. Dallas: SMU Dept. of English, 2011. 46-55. Print.
Renaissance Man. Dir. Penny Marshall. Touchstone Pictures, 1994. DVD.
When one engages in writing they are able to look upon their lives in a new perspective. One separates from roles and statuses of daily life, community’s, and experiences at particular time and place. This idea of stepping outside or beyond ones recognized community and structure of life presents the opportunity to recreate and voice identity and stories in new ways. In Joseph Harris’ Book A Teaching Subject there is a chapter on this idea of community and composition. Basically, Harris argues against the idea of a coherent, unified academic discourse community. He expresses the difference between the ‘language’ of the university and ‘language’ of students/individuals. This disconnect between them presents difficulty in figuring out and understanding why people would move in between the two. People are members of many communities in their daily lives and this means have many discourse communities. Adding additional ones does n...
In the novel, What the Best College Students Do written by Ken Bain, we learn about how college student goes through rough times in their college life. The author brings up a common issue that occurs in the academic life of college students. It is the need of having self confidence and self esteem. Bain believes that if a student loves and admires themselves it will give the student a better advantage of having a well-being lifestyle than all their other peers that are having difficulties. Many college students focus mainly on their grades other than the knowledges that they are learning in class. The idea of having perfect grades in all the subjects are limiting the students from approaching activities that they might be interested.
From my experiences in high school, I know the kind of academic environment I want for my college experience. For the last four years, I’ve thrived as part of the International Baccalaureate program at Poudre High School, which bears significant similarities to the Norlin Scholars program: both involve a community of engaged, academically motivated students who take rigorous core classes together and live within a larger school community. The IB program has been instrumental in my development as a student and as a person during my time in high school. I’ve found that being surrounded by brilliant, motivated peers is both motivating and intellectually invigorating for me, and drives me to reach new heights. When your peers are all incredibly well-informed and passionate,
In a society where a collegiate degree is almost necessary to make a successful living, the idea that a student cares less about the education and more about the “college experience” can seem baffling. In My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, Rebekah Nathan, the author’s pseudonym, tackles the idea that academics are less impactful on a student then the culture of college life. Nathan, a 50-year-old cultural anthropologist and university professor, went undercover as a college freshman for a research project. From her research, she hoped to better understand the undergraduate experience by fully immersing herself in college life. To do this, she anonymously applied to “AnyU,” a fake acronym for a real university,
Murray, Charles. “Are Too Many People Going to College?” They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter In Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 222-242. Print.
As students and parents are looking into colleges, their minds need to be open and free of biases. Sanford Ungar’s essay can help broaden the mindset of families, and even help make a decision to attend a liberal arts college. Ungar uses various techniques in his essay that make it effective. Not only does he discredit the misperceptions of liberal arts, but he also approaches his writing with etiquette that appeals to his readers. In his essay, Ungar uses three main appeals: reason, emotion, and ethics...
Colleges try their best to form a sense of community, but the reality is that everyone has their individual path and schedules, and one must really put in effort to have similar paths and schedules as their peers. For example, Nathan writes that everyone has different classes, meal plans, as well as extracurricular activities, which makes it hard to form a sense of community. In addition to a lack of community, Nathan also notices the lack of diversity. Again, colleges try their best to have very diverse communities, but the reality is that the majority of students are Caucasian. The lack of community and diversity shocked Nathan, because colleges make it seem like the
In addition it ends the movie by reinforcing the importance of establishing a heterosexual relationship with a male; which gives female viewers the impression that no achievement they ever make will exceed over getting married and having a baby. The movie however goes against the trend of post-identity television because it portrays the problems women face in the workplace. “Legally Blonde” shows that the assumption that everyone is equal and who you are does not alter your experience in society is an idealistic fantasy. The movie goes against the trend of identity no longer being of importance and acknowledges the differences in the cultural experience of men and
Legally Blonde’s plot is not one known for its complexity. To sum it up, Elle Woods goes to Harvard in hopes to get a law degree to win Warner back. During her time there, she meets a guy who treats her much better than Warner ever did and he encourages her to stay in the program. In the end, Elle graduates with a law degree from Harvard and with a ring on her left hand from the real guy of her dreams. Obviously this movie is a comedy with a not-so-serious love theme. The theme that is shown in Legally Blonde time and time again is social class – or more specifically, intellectual class. At Harvard, no one who is considered “average” is given any good attention. They accept you upon how smart you are. Elle is a smart girl, however, she is often
Because universities are extending the number of applicants they are accepting, a lot of people question whether community colleges still matter. Personally, I share Liz Addison, for¬¬¬mer Southern Maine Community College student and graduate of Royal Veterinary College in London, opinion that appears in her essay “Two Years Are Better than Four” published in 2007. In her essay, even though Addison rebuts Rick Perlstein’s perspective that community colleges no longer matter as they once did, explains the philosophy of community college, and recounts her college experience, she mostly focus on proving her opinion, stated in the last paragraph of the essay, that “college does still matter”(258). In other words, Adison thinks that college still
Downs, Doug. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth A. Wardle. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 466-78. Print.
Graff, G., Birkenstein, C., & Durst, R. K. (2009). The Growing College Gap. "They say/I say": the moves that matter in academic writing : with readings (p. 379). New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
...s and Contexts. Ed. Stephen A. Scipione Feinstein and Marisa. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's, n.d. 119-34. Print. 29 Oct. 2013.
Light, J. R. (2001). Making the most of college: Students speak their minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
School community relationship is a mutual understanding through which the school and the community link with each other for the achievement of goals of the community and school too. School is a social organization functions properly on the effective interrelationship within it and with its associate communities. An issue in a school affects the community likewise to what happens in the community affects school. This implies that the community builds its schools likewise to the schools (Sidhu, 2007). Therefore, school relation with the community is mutually interdependence.