final reflection 12/4

My experiences working at FSU’s Reading and Writing Center have been both challenging and rewarding. I have had many different kinds of students come in with all different writing styles and talents. It is so cool to see such a diversity of people here at Florida State. And it so cool that we can all help each other in some way.

This week was one of those weeks that was both challenging and rewarding at the writing center. The first student I tutored this week was a junior majoring in social work, so naturally, her paper dealt with social work. She was most concerned with grammar and APA formatting. I asked her if there was anything besides that (e.g. organization, formatting paragraphs, etc.) that she would also like to discuss, but she kept on insisting on grammar. So, we ended up reading over her paper and talking about various areas of concern. She mostly had questions for me, rather than me asking her questions about the paper. At that point, it was kind of like she knew what she wanted and did not want to do much else. When the appointment was over, we got through six of the twelve pages and she immediately made another appointment at the writing center. Although I was happy she was utilizing the RWC, I still felt unaccomplished. We both knew thirty minutes was not enough time to go through a twelve-page paper. And in addition, I’m not 100% familiar with APA formatting, so that was difficult too. I felt like she didn’t trust me as a tutor. Is there something I can do next time that happens?

My next appointment was for an hour and it was for a Chinese graduate student. We were going over her paper regarding Chinese and American government. Once again, her paper also required APA formatting, and we had to research what goes into APA. That took up unnecessary time. I think something the Peer Tutoring class can benefit from next semester is going over properly formatting papers, besides just MLA. Especially because the RWC allows any major. Other than that, the appointment went smoothly and we worked on sentence structure. She was an awesome English writer for having Chinese as her native language!

In all, I feel like me working at the RWC has benefitted me in multiple ways. I’ve learned so much by working with all different kinds of students and it is so rewarding, as I had mentioned earlier. I am so thankful for this opportunity and I cannot wait to intern in the spring!