Hello class! My name is Hanah Feinstein, and I had the pleasure of interviewing Sabria Hall. Before I dive deep into my conversation with Sabria, I need to apologize to you, the reader. I need to apologize that you are only reading about Sabria Hall second hand as opposed to getting the privileged to speak with her directly. Sabria Hall is a one-of-a-kind, creative, and empathetic person who inspires anyone who meets her. So, I am sorry that while I won the lottery in getting the opportunity to talk with her, you are only reading about the glimmer of light that she is. But this is the position we find ourselves, so please join me as we learn about our inspiring classmate, Sabria Hall. 

Today, Sabria Hall is a student at Georgia State University majoring in film and media studies. But to see how she got here, we need to rewind back to 2011. In 2011, Sabria dropped out of high school, and she never expected to return to formal education. Instead, books were her education. Through reading, she was taught creativity, world building, and how limitless her potential is. Books empowered Sabria to develop her own individual academic self outside of the classroom. Instead of just memorizing facts, she views academics creatively, and through critical thinking. While she was educating herself through books, she was also gaining life skills as an employee at Chik-Fil-A. The company was impressed by Sabria’s leadership initiatives and compassion for her coworkers, so she was quickly promoted to a managerial position. As a manger, Sabria gained confidence in her capacity to achieve anything she put her mind to. This confidence encouraged Sabria to go back to school despite her friends doubting her. In 2019, she proved her cynics wrong by getting her GED, and soon after she applied to Georgia State University. This decade has awarded Sabria with life lessons that she translates into her academic self.  

Sabria Hall is a named to remember. One day we are going to see her name in lights as she wins Oscars for filmmaking. Sabria is studying film with a focus in directing, screenwriting, and editing. She loves all genres of films, and she observes aspects of movies that the typical viewer would never notice. She applies his type of critical analysis to her school academics as well. Her earliest influence was Spike Lee. Sabria immediately fell in love with his films, but she felt discouraged to enter the film industry because of the lack of representation of Black female filmmakers. Her perception changed when she discovered filmmaker Ava DuVernay. Seeing Ava DuVernay’s success as a filmmaker inspired Sabria to pursue her dreams. Sabria’s determination and intelligence will be the momentum to making her dreams a reality.  

Sabria is an excellent writer. Her creativity shines in her ability to convey language in the written form. She is a prose pro. However, she admits that her biggest weakness is not being receptive to criticism. She does not like getting feedback on her writing, and this inhibits her stories from being as great as they could be. Even great writers need to revise their work and receive constructive criticism. “The interactive, social nature of writing makes peer review not only an effective source of feedback, but also an essential skill” (Friend 276). Bad Ideas About Writing teaches us the benefits of receiving feedback and constructive criticism to improve our writing. Sabria’s goal for this class is to become more comfortable with receiving feedback.  

As our conversation progressed, we started talking about our favorite TV shows. We shared our love for Parks and Rec, and Sabria says she identifies with Leslie Knope. Leslie Knope is a compassionate leader who is motivated by her ambitions and devoted to caring for the people around her. Sabria Hall really is a real-life Leslie Knope. Like Ava DuVernay inspired her, Sabria Hall is going to inspire so many young girls to follow their dreams.  

Friend, Christopher. “Student Writing Must Be Graded By The Teacher.” Bad Ideas About  Writing.” Edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe, The Digital Publishing Institute,  2017, 273-276. 

This essay describes the academic journey of Emma Leigh-Barfield. Determinant, passionate, and self-aware are the three words to describe Emma’s academic and personal self. After receiving her first camera at just 8 years old Emma discovered a passion for photography and cinematography that lead her to pursue a film degree at Georgia State University. As a 2nd year student, Emma has used the unfortunate circumstance of having to attend school virtually to her favor by pursuing all her various interests. While taking school, Emma juggles school and working at her church, as a wedding cinematographer, and at her family restaurant. By taking only three classes, Emma is able to indulge in various activities ranging from writing short stories to crocheting.

After Emma graduated from high school in May of 2019, she decided to take a break year. During this year she rediscovered her motivation and passion for learning and art. Emma underwent a major transformation from high school to college in both personal and academic aspects where she developed effective work ethics integral to her college successes and experienced a personal self-growth. Emma stressed the importance of organization and its value to her success by claiming that without her break year to learn these strategies she would have surely struggled her first year. Emma’s strategies for organization are linked to the GSU information videos discussing organization strategies that can help for online classes. The videos emphasized the importance of being cognizant of deadlines and additional information from professors similar to what Emma believed was important.

Outside of her academic pursuits, Emma loves art and journalism. She also loves to hike, go kayaking, and travel (before the pandemic of course!). Her favorite places to travels were Amsterdam, Paris, and London where she was enticed by the beauty and culture of the city.

Despite not having the traditional college experience, Emma has created her own unique experience undertaking her several interests in art and photography. Despite the obstacles in meeting people and indulge in a community to grow her experiences, Emma has found her college experience greatly enjoyable as she is left with time to engage in her various passions and determine her future career path.

Emma’s future holds several possibilities from moving to Atlanta and obtain a 4-year degree, getting an internship or job in the film industry, or becoming a photography director. No matter the path Emma’s unique experiences and versatile interests are no doubt going to allow her to exceed all her expectations.

Sources

• Emma-Leigh Barfield, Momodou J et al, Pair interview transcript, February 2021
• GSU Resources for Learning Remotely  “What Organizational Strategies Can Help You in Your Online Course?”, February 2021

Selfie of Clettis Stephens

An adage that we all have likely heard before goes: “patience is a virtue”, which truly fits Clettis Stephens. Along with using the Japanese proverb: “fall seven times and stand up eight” (Reynolds, 2011) to describe him, I have the pleasure of introducing our resilient classmate Clettis Stephens who recently allowed me the opportunity to view his stance on his academic self. Through learning more about him, I came to find that he can be a bit too critical towards himself, but this has only served to keep him humble and motivated as he strives to achieve a personal goal whilst refusing to give up for his own and his family’s sakes. Currently in his third semester at GSU majoring in computer science, he has shown he is a persistent individual who treads carefully due to an ongoing fear of failure. This fear, though, serves as a driving force to try his hardest in his third attempt at receiving a college degree.

Clettis comes from “an area where a majority of my family members did not make it to college”. He expanded on that statement by adding “I’m not sure most of them made it out of high school”. Given this explanation, it’s understandable why he carries this fear of failure as it is apparent that he doesn’t want to simply be a statistic along with that majority of his family members he mentioned. With this kind of environment as a foundation in mind, his self-reflected description of his academic self was: nervous, pessimistic, and overworking. However, now at a point in life where he has his own family (a wife and three children), Clettis has made yet another attempt to ensure he has a different outcome from the setting he grew up around despite carrying a negative outlook on his academic self.

In citing his biggest influence on his academic self being his fear of failure, Clettis referred to previous college attempts by saying “I tend to deal with thinking I will have to retake classes halfway through the semester due to not receiving the grades that I would like to have”. However, a fear of failure is not Clettis’ only influence on his academic self. He also cited his wife and kids as also being his largest influence as “they motivate me to do better at everything I do”. During my opportunity to pick his brain I came to realize that while Clettis is rather negative towards himself in self-reflection, his wife and children serve as an even bigger inspiration for him that supersedes his own fears and self-description evidenced by the fact that he has returned to school now three times. He endeavors to be a father who shows his children that nothing is impossible, and that they “can do any and everything you put your mind to as long as you put the work in”.

Despite now having his own family to care for, Clettis has given college education another shot in becoming a career corporate systems analyst showing that nothing in life really is ever “too late”. My advice to Clettis is to continue trying your best to organize your time help make you successful, for as Dr. Chew of Samford University states, “You have to commit the time and hard work necessary to succeed” followed by his advice, “You have to recognize that the time you have will limit your likelihood of success” (Samford University, 2011). Clettis has likely accomplished more in his personal life than many of his fellow students at GSU (with many personal/ professional high and low points), but that hasn’t stopped him from trying to complete a degree from a college institution. I found myself relating a lot to Clettis’ self-description, but ultimately felt that he should give himself more credit. I enjoyed my chance to get to know Clettis, and would really enjoy if he gave me more opportunity to learn from him in the future to further develop my own academic self.

Sources:

Reynolds, G. (2011, March 24). Fall down seven times, get Up eight: The power of japanese resilience. Retrieved February 05, 2021, from https://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2011/03/fall-down-seven-times-get-up-eight-the-power-of-japanese-resilience.html

Samford University. (2011, August 16). How to Get the Most Out of Studying: Part 1 of 5, “Beliefs That Make You Fail… Or Succeed” [Video]. Youtube. Retrieved February 05, 2021, from https://youtu.be/RH95h36NChI

I had the pleasure of being paired up with John Dinh, and upon making initial contact I was able to determine a friendship will be established after this class assignment is completed. From our first few exchanges, I was able to tell he is an immensely helpful, considerate, and all-around generous individual. We had some hiccups trying to get our scheduling down and I could not have been more relieved with the way he wanted to go over and beyond to make sure we were able to get this interview completed. The questions that I compiled together came from trying to figure out what will help me learn about John as a student and an individual.

John went to Hapeville Elementary from kindergarten to fifth grade. During the grades of 6th through 8th, he attended Paul D. West Middle went on to attend West Lake High School where he graduated from. After high school, he went to Oxford College of Emory University for 2 years obtaining his Associates of Arts. He decided that he needed to take a mental break from learning to do some soul searching to figure out what he wanted to major in and what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He is currently at Georgia State University pursuing a degree in business administration he wants to transfer to Georgia State University Business School where he will be obtaining a dual major in CIS (Computer Information Systems) and Managerial Services. John wants to start a career as an HRIS (Human Resource Information System) analyst, or any kind of work dealing with information systems.

Some of John’s biggest influencers and motivators of his academic self are his siblings and someone that he worked alongside. John refers to himself as a more indecisive person and expressed that he struggled for years when it came to deciding what would be beneficial for him. He uses his brothers for daily motivation, their eagerness, and quickness when it comes to figuring out what it was that they wanted to do career-wise, supplying him with the push he needed to finish his journey into choosing his career. A human resource manager and mentor of his, while he was working at Delta, inspired him to strive for a career in human resources.

During this current climate that we are living in with having to do online learning compared to face-to-face learning, John expressed that networking has been very baffling and frustrating. Due to the pandemic, he is not able to take part in any of the activities that are hosted by Georgia State University which makes it harder for him to reach out and build relationships and network to get guidance from peers on his career path and options.

In the conclusion of the interview with John, it is ok to take a step back if you are not confident with what it is that you want to do career-wise or even what you want to obtain while you are in school. Some people can maneuver through life with everything figured out but sometimes you must take a break, rely on some of your mentors and influencers when you are “going with the flow” without any direction on which way you should be going. I can say that I related to john throughout this interview, and I know it is more of us out there “just going with the flow” but we will get it done. Don’t be afraid to reach on and introduce yourself to John he has been a very informative and enjoyable person during this project.

Kirtan Subramaniam is a focused, curious, and resilient academic student. He is commented to school, and aspires to achieve in whatever he puts his mind to. When it comes to life, he is always up for a challenge and refuses to allow circumstances to bring him down. To attain this mindset, he tries to see every predicament as “a glass-half-full, not half-empty” (Subramaniam, 2021). This optimism encourages him to see and do his best in every situation. Kirtan believes that school has the ability to open up a world of curiosity. In one of our discussions, he said “I am the type of person to wonder about things that are taught to me even beyond the classroom…I’ve even spent hours upon hours being curious about random and trivial information” (Subramaniam, 2021). Based on his statement, learning was never a forced task but an opportunity to expand his understanding of valued topics. Within the classroom, Kirtan was able to found his passion, and outside the classroom, he continued to nurture it. Kirtan’s academic self can be condensed into those three words and as he pursues higher education, it continues to flourish.  

To appreciate Kirtan’s academic self, we should take the time to explore his academic journey. Kirtan started his academic career at Dunwoody Elementary School. He stayed there from kindergarten through 2^nd grade, until his family moved to Cumming, Georgia. In Cumming, Kirtan finished elementary school at Whitlow and continued to Vickery Creek Middle School. After middle school, he went to South Forsyth High School and graduated from there in 2020. He currently is attending Georgia State University and majoring in Computer Science. He entered that major in hopes of one day becoming a developer for cryptocurrency companies. This semester, he is taking Economics, Math 2212, CS 1302, and, of course, English 1102. Thus far in English 1102, his favorite reading was “Taking my Parent to College” by Jennine Capó Crucet. Being a child of immigrants and a “first generation” American, Kirtan found this piece relatable in prospect to his own life experiences. He connected with the fact that he also had to grow up watching his parents struggle to understand American customs and did his best to help them along the way. Kirtan not only got strength from his education but also from his family, to become the fierce academic student he is today.   

Before closing, I would like to share something that I think really sums up Kirtan’s character. When discussing issues such as the pandemic and online school he said, “I guess lockdown sort of made me more distracted, but two things I have fundamentally realized is that: You can either make excuses or succeed, and discipline is the key to everything” (Subramaniam 2021). We can all agree that the pandemic had major effects on our lives, but how are you responding to those effects? Are you making excuses or are you finding ways to succeed in your circumstances? Kirtan has been able to succeed by seeing the pandemic as “a glass half full and not empty” and being disciplined in the areas he needed the most. If Kirtan Subramaniam can do it, can you?

Source Cited:

Subramaniam, Kirtan. (2021) Questionnaire. Unpublished paper, Georgia State University.

Hi everyone, I would like to introduce you to my fiercely driven and incredible partner Sydney Davis. Working with Sydney in the last week or so has been such a calming process especially when having such an easy going and flexible partner.

Describing herself as a successful, motivated, and creative student, Sydney has come a long way from her days of procrastinating school work and minimizing academic importance. Following a traditionally normal academic path of grades beginning as a kindergartener at McLendon Elementary School and working her way up through Shamrock Middle School and eventually to Druid Hills High School where after completing twelfth grade she graduated with the goal of continuing her basketball career, thanks to a scholarship to Georgia State University. Originally only considering her venture to college as something she did “mostly because [she] got a basketball scholarship” she soon understood that her time there could be so much more.

Over the last year and a half at Georgia State Davis has changed her view on college and writes that she “continued to do college so that [she] could have a career. Now regarding college as a way for her to be successful it is no shock that being goal driven would be such an important motivating factor in Sydney’s academic life. As a Health Science major and hopes of becoming a nurse, Davis writes that her “biggest influence on her academic self is to be [successful] in her career,” clearly setting herself up to be shown as someone who is driven by her want to accomplish what she has set her mind to. Often describing her greatest influences to be those of motivation to achieve the certain goals she has set before herself and excel above and beyond what the standard before her was. Describing how she hopes that through her perceived academic achievements and future endeavors she could be a role model to her little brother, especially by being the first child in her family to graduate with a college degree, Sydney highlights herself as such an admirable and humble character in such an effortless way that makes us all want to have that same kind of grace and motivation.

Even though Sydney has mentioned the influence her mom has over her, she is not her greatest advisor in life. Davis describes life itself as her best mentor describing how she honestly does not have any mentors but instead saying, “I go off of life and what life has to teach me,” creating a phrase that is so simple yet holds so much truth. The go with the flow personality that I have experienced through interacting with Sydney is definitely an accurate reflection of these words. While Sydney remains peaceful and easy going, she has found that while taking English 1102 and US History the challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic and online learning have become proven pressure points for her in her college experience. Nevertheless, Sydney is proud of the academic self she presents to the world today as someone who is punctual and serious about the material she is learning and the work she is doing that will help set her on her career goal.

I really admire Sydney’s work ethic and patience through life and academically. It was an absolute joy to be able to connect with another student during this time even with the conditions we have been delt as a nation. This assignment goes to show that while in person contact will never be replaceable there is always still room to establish new relationships.

Thomas and I have known each other for a short period of time and have had interesting conversations through chat which has helped us to get to know more about each other. We felt that conversing over text was best suitable for both of us. Thomas told me that the readings and videos from week 2 helped him as they gave some strategies and ideas about studying. Thomas identifies himself as a male and goes by he/him. He is 19 years old and his nationality is Colombian. The three academic self words that Thomas goes by are organized, hardworking, and motivated. A proud moment for Thomas is that he can overcome any class by putting enough effort into learning the material given and he likes to stay motivated as he thinks about the achievements he will get by passing the class and getting the work done. My partner mentions that during high school his academic self was not disciplined at all, and often found it difficult to get himself to make his assignments, moreover, he feels that as he transitioned into college he has become more disciplined but often faces problems time to time due to procrastination.

My partner Thomas was born in Colombia and moved to the United States when he was 15 years old and due to this transition, he found high school to be challenging. He completed his k-12 in Dunwoody high school and decided to pursue a college degree directly after high school as he would like to be the first person in his family to finish college. Thomas chose Georgia State University as he believes that it is a good college and has the necessary resources to successfully complete the degree. He is doing his second semester at GSU and is enrolled in the Computer Science Major. He is taking three classes this semester which are precalculus, American government, and English.

Thomas believes that improving his attention span would help him to develop his academic self. He organizes his assignments and classes every week and tries to complete all assignments during his day off from work. When Thomas and I discussed about our IP-2 assignment, he told me that he gave the idea to make a video about the software GSU provides because it would be easier for freshman students to adapt to the learning pattern. Besides college, Thomas loves to do skateboarding and makes sure he does it every day, he also works part time as a cashier. He would prefer to take classes face to face after the pandemic is over. This conversation with Thomas has helped me to expand my information on how everyone has their own academic self.

Hello professor and fellow classmates,

      My task was to interview Solanlly Rijo Lake and learn more about her. I was to try and really get to know her true academic self. We had a zoom meeting on January 30, 2021 to introduce ourselves and get to really know each other. Then we had a second zoom meeting the following day to really discuss our academic selves. 

      My classmate who I had the honor of interviewing is actually from the Dominican Republic and has lived there her whole life. She attended Las Palmas Christian School from kindergarten through high school (Lake, 2021). She was very involved with different aspects of her school. She was a member of her high school volleyball team and she was student government president of her senior class. Something that was really interesting to me was that she was in the cyber security program at her school. 

      She was considered a scholar growing up, making sure to have her work done nice and on time. She’s also an overthinker which is good and bad. She will go out of her way to make sure that her assignment is done to the very best of her ability. She was named the valedictorian of her graduating class of 2020. After graduating high school, she decided to go straight to college and wanted to attend GSU. For some reason she wasn’t able to, so she decided to attend a college in the Dominican Republic so she wouldn’t be behind in her studies. She eventually got cleared and enrolled as a first year freshman at GSU in the Fall 2020 semester and left the other college. 

      Her major is in computer science, because she’s really into technology. When I asked her what her plans were for after college she told me something really impressive. Her response was “I wanted to get my masters in cyber security and start her own company. But my bigger picture includes advancing technology in the Dominican Republic. I feel that my country is too far behind other countries and I want that to change” (Lake, 2021). I personally feel that she could really do some marvelous things in the technological world. Usually when you’re talking about technology, you mention America and China, but she’s going to make it so they have to include the Dominican Republic in that conversation. 

      There was an essay from“Bad Ideas About Writing” that really stood out to her. It was titled “SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST BORN GOOD WRITERS” by Jill Parrott. She said “It completely changed my mindset about writing because I thought of writing as just a born quality and I never wanted to write cause I wanted to be perfect” (Lake, 2021). A lot of people think that people are born good writers and it’s just not true. Bad Ideas About Writing has a bunch of wonderful ideas that people think are true but aren’t. It’s just so informative and provides us so much knowledge about writing in general. 

      Just like every human being in this world, she has some academic bad habits. It’s very rare, but every once in a while she procrastinates and put things off just a little bit. She said “that even though I procrastinate, I make sure to get my assignments done on time” (Lake, 2021). Time management is a bit of an adjust because she’s used to hanging out with her friends and having fun. She’s had to adjust her social life in order to make her time management better. 

      Because we’re in an online class, we don’t really get to know our classmates. It was really cool getting to know Solanlly Rijo Lake and learn about her academic life. She was the valedictorian of her senior class and is really interested in technology specifically cyber security. She’s a very smart individual from the Dominican Republic who’s going to be very successful in her future. She’s going to change the world and advance her country technologically. Her profile leaves me with one question: what’s something that we can do to improve our country whether it’s technology, science, sports, etc.

Citations:

• Lake, Rio. Interview. Conducted by Kaleb Lynum, 30-31 January 2021
• Parrot, Jill. SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST BORN GOOD WRITERS. BAD IDEAS ABOUT WRITING. Edited by Cheryl E. Ball & Drew M. Loewe. 2017.
  

Shawnice’s Academic Self

            Shawnice Tasher Academic Profile

        Shawince is twenty year old humble and determined student. Growing up Shawnice always looked up to her older sister Loyata. She is her absolute role model. Shawince confided in me how much she looked up to her. Her sister was very intelligent and filled with determination which was no doubt passed on to Shawnice. She lived in New York City and graduated from Martin Van Buren High School. She did not really enjoy going to school due to the early morning bus rides and hustle of the city, however it provided her the sense of street smart. After she graduated Highschool she immediately started school at Nassau Community college. Shawnice ended up moving to Georgia and now she has been attending GSU for about two years. The most frustrating thing about college she described was starting over the application process and getting all the documents submitted from another state and the run around Georgia state gave her.

       Shawnice is currently majoring in health and science to become a dental hygienist. When I asked her why she wanted to be a hygienist, she told me she’s always been a little obsessed with people’s smiles and maintaining her healthy teeth. Not only is Shawnice very focused on her life goals and what she wants to accomplish, but she is also a very loving person. She believes God put her on this earth to help others and make others happy. Like myself, Shawnice is a very caring, loving person. You can tell she loves her family a lot. She prides herself and spends most of her free time being a good aunt. Helping her sister take care of her nine-month-old nephew and seven-year-old niece.Shawnice loves spending quality time with family.

          Shawnice described her academic self as being determined. From what she’s explained to me throughout her college career, she has had a hard time figuring out what exactly it is that she wants to do, which we bonded over sharing some of our interest and first time confusions about starting college. But when she finally figured out that she wanted to be a successful dental hygienist, she stuck to it and dedicated most of her time to studying and completing her goals. Humble and dedicated, she took six classes per semester to catch up on all the courses she failed when starting college. All while still maintaining a full-time Monday- Friday job. Not only is Shawnice and I both dedicated to our school work. We both had other similarities, such as our work schedule, loving supportive families, and liking to be independent even if it is a bit hard at times.

            Having one more semester left to graduate with her associates and start the dental hygiene program, Shawnice describes her last few semesters as being the hardest because not only were classes getting harder, but there are a few life obstacles that she had to get past as well, but she stayed focused and determined to become the young lady she is today.