A Semester of Reflection
This class has been more fulfilling than I ever expected from a class in my last semester of college. If we are being honest, senioritis has been hitting pretty hard all year, especially this semester. Due to the workload of a general writing class, I meant to take this class junior year or at least first-semester senior year. However, procrastination and an administrative mess up earlier this year led me to have to take it during my final semester at USC. For context, I needed five more units total to graduate going into this semester, so I was prepared to check out, focus on track, and take yoga and queer theory. Adding WRIT340 to the workload was not in the plan. However, I think it was a blessing in disguise.
There were a few different parts of the class this semester that I think I would have been missing out on had I taken it at a different time. The common theme of them all was reflection. I would not classify myself as a reflective person. In fact, I think that is one of my biggest weaknesses. I’ve dodged therapy, I don’t like to journal, I listen to music at all times, and I generally try to avoid reflective thoughts. For a multitude of reasons, I know that I would greatly benefit from a bit of self-reflection. However, thinking too much about the past or people’s intentions and actions tends to freak me out a little, so I tend to avoid it. But, this class forced me to look inward and truly reflect on my undergraduate career, just as a major chapter in my life began to close.
My four years at USC were the most formative and important years of my life thus far. I adopted an identity as a Division I athlete, I came out to myself and my family as a queer woman, and I truly started to understand who I was as a person. Although I knew that these things were impacting me a lot, I never really paused to reflect on the major changes in my life. Starting with WP1, I surprised myself by putting myself on a piece of paper and being incredibly vulnerable. I had planned to write about the culture of queerness in sports with a focus on professional athletes via outside research. However, as I began to write, I felt myself pull a core memory from my childhood and write about it in the context of my topic. As an international relations major who is about to pursue a Master’s degree, I write a lot. Sometimes writing flows from me very easily, and sometimes it takes a bit more planning and work. With creative writing, the former very rarely happens. But, for WP1, I remember sitting in a coffee shop and feeling a therapeutic release as these memories flowed effortlessly from me. I shocked myself with the amount that I had to say from a personal perspective about my topic.
This journey of self-reflection didn’t stop with WP1. My joint project of WP2 and WP3 came at a very (monumental) part of my life and track career, which I spoke about in WP3. To summarize, after a long career riddled with injuries, my track and field career practically ended just a few months before it was supposed to naturally end with my graduation. This was a heart-wrenching experience for me. At that time, though, I began my interviews for WP2 about athlete mental health, injuries, and the culture of toughness in sports. During a period where I would greatly benefit from talking about what I was feeling, I was pushed by my paper to talk to teammates and friends about their experiences with the same thing I was dealing with. It made me feel dramatically less alone. I also researched the experiences of elite athletes with injuries and identity. Seeing the famous athletes from my childhood struggle with the same things I was struggling with was comforting. However, my WP2 was merely a compilation of interviews and research, not my own thoughts. That would be the goal of my WP3. As a result, I felt myself continuously put off writing WP3 so as to not need to reflect further. But, when I finally started to write, I had a very similar experience to that of my WP1 process- the words flowed from me almost therapeutically. I also was surprised to see both my classmates and your reaction to the work. For a paper that felt like my internal monologue spilling onto a page, it was validating to know that it was impactful to someone else.
Considering the climate of USC this semester with the rise of tuition to over $100k and the reaction of the university to peaceful protests, the reflection we did as a class on the culture of the education system was very interesting. It made me view the system in a very different way. This came at a crux in my education- as my undergraduate studies ended and my graduate studies began. Hearing your perspective as someone who has both received and taught a large amount of higher education was incredibly impactful.
Overall, this class began as something that, frankly, I was dreading. However, it had a few meaningful results. For one, I was able to remember that I love writing and I can be pretty good at it at times. But most importantly, I finally took some time to reflect on what I have been through in the past four years. I think this class was integral in moving towards closure in ending this chapter of my life. Thank you for everything.
