Fall 2013
BUS 433 Management of Nonprofit Organization A-
CHHS 422 Program Planning A-
SPAN 301 Comp/Oral Practice B+
SPAN 301 SL Service Learning in Hispanic community A
SPAN 304 Intro to Spanish Literature C+
SPAN 305 Spanish for the Professions A-
SPAN 301: This course focused more on writing and listening skills. Another course with Professor Arrizabalaga and I was starting to feel more comfortable with my Spanish skills. At the end of the semester he had us conduct group debates, and although I did not agree with my assigned topic, it was the first time in a classroom setting where I was front stage and meant to speak Spanish continuously in front of my peers. This particular semester was also my first truly difficult semester because the courses were getting tougher but I also had a heavy load of 21 units. Nonetheless, the course did improve my writing skills since we would have weekly writing assignments. This course fulfilled MLO 2: Language and Linguistic Knowledge.
SPAN 301 SL: My Service Learning experience was truly rewarding and an overall fantastic experience. I am sad to admit that I did not get to speak Spanish as much as I would have hoped because the kids I was surrounded by spoke English more often than Spanish. I volunteered with the nonprofit organization Community Partnership for Youth and would assist in tutoring at Highland Elementary in Seaside. Although most of the students were Spanish speakers, the staff was comprised of English speakers so the after-school program was all English. But I would go out of my way to try and converse in Spanish with some of the kids, it was funny to them because they were better Spanish speakers than I was and they are used to adults being more advanced. This course fulfilled MLO 5: Cultural Praxis as well as MLO 2: Language and Linguistic Knowledge.
SPAN 304: The only Spanish course during my academic career in which I did not do very well in. I remember struggling with this course because a lot of the assigned readings were poems, and poetry is an absolute weakness for me, even in English. However, it was truly rewarding to finally read some works of Hispanic authors whose names I had heard but never read anything by them such as Miguel Cervantes or Gabriel Garcia Lorca. For this course, we were assigned reading and then our assignment were to analyze poems or describe the characters and plot for every short story we read. Overall an interesting course in which I learned a lot from. This course fulfilled MLO 3: Literacy and Cultural Knowledge.
SPAN 305: Initially, I thought this was going to be a very interesting course because I wanted to know just how having Spanish skills would help in the workforce, particularly abroad in some Spanish speaking country. I was disappointed in this course however, and it was another course taught by Carlos Arrizabalaga. Maybe because it was an 8:00 am course, my classmates seemed unmotivated and the professor did not seem to know how to have any direction for this course. It was a lot of repetitive information, that he talks about in his other courses and it made the class less enjoyable. It simply was another course in which a professor simply lectured for nearly the entire semester and I believe little work was accomplished. Nonetheless, this course fulfilled MLO 2: Language and Linguistic Knowledge.
BUS 433 Management of Nonprofit Organization A-
CHHS 422 Program Planning A-
SPAN 301 Comp/Oral Practice B+
SPAN 301 SL Service Learning in Hispanic community A
SPAN 304 Intro to Spanish Literature C+
SPAN 305 Spanish for the Professions A-
SPAN 301: This course focused more on writing and listening skills. Another course with Professor Arrizabalaga and I was starting to feel more comfortable with my Spanish skills. At the end of the semester he had us conduct group debates, and although I did not agree with my assigned topic, it was the first time in a classroom setting where I was front stage and meant to speak Spanish continuously in front of my peers. This particular semester was also my first truly difficult semester because the courses were getting tougher but I also had a heavy load of 21 units. Nonetheless, the course did improve my writing skills since we would have weekly writing assignments. This course fulfilled MLO 2: Language and Linguistic Knowledge.
SPAN 301 SL: My Service Learning experience was truly rewarding and an overall fantastic experience. I am sad to admit that I did not get to speak Spanish as much as I would have hoped because the kids I was surrounded by spoke English more often than Spanish. I volunteered with the nonprofit organization Community Partnership for Youth and would assist in tutoring at Highland Elementary in Seaside. Although most of the students were Spanish speakers, the staff was comprised of English speakers so the after-school program was all English. But I would go out of my way to try and converse in Spanish with some of the kids, it was funny to them because they were better Spanish speakers than I was and they are used to adults being more advanced. This course fulfilled MLO 5: Cultural Praxis as well as MLO 2: Language and Linguistic Knowledge.
SPAN 304: The only Spanish course during my academic career in which I did not do very well in. I remember struggling with this course because a lot of the assigned readings were poems, and poetry is an absolute weakness for me, even in English. However, it was truly rewarding to finally read some works of Hispanic authors whose names I had heard but never read anything by them such as Miguel Cervantes or Gabriel Garcia Lorca. For this course, we were assigned reading and then our assignment were to analyze poems or describe the characters and plot for every short story we read. Overall an interesting course in which I learned a lot from. This course fulfilled MLO 3: Literacy and Cultural Knowledge.
SPAN 305: Initially, I thought this was going to be a very interesting course because I wanted to know just how having Spanish skills would help in the workforce, particularly abroad in some Spanish speaking country. I was disappointed in this course however, and it was another course taught by Carlos Arrizabalaga. Maybe because it was an 8:00 am course, my classmates seemed unmotivated and the professor did not seem to know how to have any direction for this course. It was a lot of repetitive information, that he talks about in his other courses and it made the class less enjoyable. It simply was another course in which a professor simply lectured for nearly the entire semester and I believe little work was accomplished. Nonetheless, this course fulfilled MLO 2: Language and Linguistic Knowledge.