Kaetlin McVaugh

StrengthsQuest Reflection: My strengths that I am choosing to reflect upon is Empathy. Empathy is the ability to put myself in others shoes, even if I have never experienced what they are experiencing. Empathy is not synonomous with sympathy. I can empathize with the actions someone takes, but that does not mean I have to sympathize with their actions. I do not necessarily identify most with this strength, but I do believe it is one of the most important for becoming a good teacher. Teachers, especially teachers who work in schools located in areas where people have low socioeconomic standing, need to be able to place themselves in the shoes of their students and understand the circumstances that they may be in. This strength has a lot of baring on my social life. I am able to understand what my friends are going through, making me better able to give them advice or sympathize with them.

Curriculum Plan Reflection: For this assignment, I planned out the classes that I am going to take over the next three semesters of my college career. This is important to me because I like to have everything planned out well in advance. It also forced me to sit down and think about EXACTLY which classes I wanted to take. I had no idea what classes I wanted to take before this assignment, so I was very glad to have the opportunity to do this. This assignment made scheduling for the next several semesters much easier.

Lessons From a First Year Buckeye: This assignment was for me to write five lessons/things that I have learned over my first semester at OSU. I decided to look at this assignment as a chance to have some fun. I wrote about some serious life lessons, but this assignment, much like my semester, was a lot of fun. I had some humorous lessons to share. I learned a lot about myself and about Ohio State this semester, and I got to summarize some of what I learned through this semester in a way that was creative and fun.