Aspect one is the focus
Reflection Week: 1 (EMPTY) Week: 2 Independent study – Week 2 Writing activity Choose one of the following aspects of your ARUL student life and write an Introduction paragraph of about 150 words. We discussed in class in Week 2 what should go in the Introduction section of a reflective writing. Bring your paragraph to class next week. 1. Your study, work, and life balance 2. Your weekly independent study tasks 3. Technology in your ARUL student life My study, work, and life balance CS1 SID:336215 Introduction It goes without saying that balancing life work and study is one of the most important and daunting issues facing many people around the word mostly we the single parent/mother, is harder because of the bigger responsibilities outside of university. Personally, speaking I consider raising children while advancing my career goals to be very challenging and in this situation as full-time student that works part-time than balance life, the important aspect is spending time with my children along with my personal/social/fun life. With the sudden predominantly financial pressure on the raise is the reason why I am working while studyining as cost of living is at its highest than ‘Burj Khalifa’, even though I am a single mother who have to work , study and balance life with children and personal responsibility example: spend nine hours with school both traveling and in class than spent three hours with the children in the house these three hours include me preparing food, clearing and giving them a bath and getting them ready for bed and getting myself ready for pbed. Week: 3 Independent study – Week 3 Writing activity Choose one of the following aspects of your ARUL student life so far and write a Description paragraph of about 225 words. We discussed in class this week what should go in the Description section of a reflective writing. Bring your paragraph to class next week. 1. Your study, work, and life balance 2. Your weekly independent study tasks 3. Technology in your ARUL student life My study, work, and life balance CS1 SID:336215 Description This reflective paper is based on my study, work and life balance as a single parent with four children ranging from 19, 16, 8 and 6 years old, balancing life while working and studying is a challenging experience considering raising children while advance my career path. Being a full-time student and working part-time can be more problematic for me or any individual because I am face with a combination of roles strain both financial strain and role strain. Week: 4 Week 4 Independent study – Writing Write the Feelings/thoughts element of your reflective writing on the aspect you have chosen from the following. The word count for this is 225. 1. Your study, work, and life balance 2. Your weekly independent study tasks 3. Technology in your ARUL student life Bring your work to the next session so we can look at it and give you some feedback. Your study, work, and life balance CR1 SID:336215 Feelings/thoughts Reflecting on my study, work, and life balance as a single mother, it is very difficult to juggle between studying, parenting, working, and socializing. Starting university was a wonderful and exciting experience, especially when I was nervous making new friends, but I think everybody were in the same position as me. consequently, my personal /social/fun life has fallen by the wayside, sometimes I think I am happy although I am not sure I can even relax any more though do not if I remember how I am happy or I am just too occupies on concentrate how happy I suppose to be. To begin with it is emotionally frustrating as a single mother who do not have a partner to share task with which is a challenging saturation, by purposefully managing my time prioritise and roles and responsibilities seeking my well-being by managing stress levels maintaining my mantal and physical health and creating personal time for myself with my children and their ages so close made it more challenging for me to cope with my assignment outside class. With their ages so close, there are must distraction from them, as this is very frustrating when I set a time outside class to do revision/assignment than that is when destructions keep in. moreover as a full-time student and working part-time considering a steady decrease in time spend in leisure activities. Week: 5 Week 5 Independent study – Writing Write the Evaluation element of your reflective writing on the aspect you have chosen from the following. The word count for this is 225. 1. Your study, work, and life balance 2. Your weekly independent study tasks 3. Technology in your ARUL student life Bring your work to the next session so we can look at it and give you some feedback. Your study, work, and life balance SID:33 Evaluate There are good and bad experience as I work, study and balance life as a single mother. The first good experience was getting accepted at (ARU) Anglia Ruskin University London as a student, but the bad think was the timing I could not manage my time and workload because of my responsibility as a mother with children at home and I also have to work and put food on the table. Another good think was meeting new friend with different diversity that made me to learn different culture and hearing other language this experience is amazing and my confident is growing everyday the other think that did not go well was me struggled with revision/assessment /course work leaving it till late, sometime I would submit my assignment the night before the deadline but my teacher was very accommodating about my situation of being a single mother with no partner to share task, this give me a great stepping stone. The financial part is very frustrating like school fee, child minder fee transportation to university. Research has found that according to Ashley L Vowels (PP 35) Financial strain and Reliance on financial Aid when interviewing student with children another theme which emerged throughout the interviews was financial strain and reliance on financial aid. While all of the mothers worked in addition to attending classes, they still experience some financial strain. In other to attend university they relied on financial aid Week: 6 Independent study – Week 6 Writing activity Write the ANALYSIS element of your reflective writing on the aspect you have chosen (from the three below) for your assignment. The word count for this is 225. 1. Your study, work, and life balance 2. Your weekly independent study tasks 3. Technology in your ARUL student life Bring your work to the next lesson so we can look at it and give you some feedback. My study, work, and life balance CS1 SID:336215 Analyse Analysing the whole process of learning and experienced as a single parent at university. Coming to ARU, I had lots of doubt in my mind like that financial constrain, combination of work and family and how manage study, coursework, revision and exams also I was not confident of my communication skills both writing and speaking because of language barrier I felt nervous but am so glad that I enrol because is a great opportunity I will never look back is the best think that I ever done. Starting university can be a wonderful and exciting experience for many students as a single parent coming back to the classroom after a long period of time, I felt nervous and overwhelmed doing the first few weeks at the at the university. I was shy to even ask teach question or asking for help and I was worried of making friend but I think everybody was in the same position and likely was experience the same concerns, this led me to meeting people from different background learn about fascinating ideal and experience, culture, act and politics. University is a chance to broaden your mind. However, applying to ARU University was one of my biggest decisions make in my life to per a degree that will enhance my career goals. According to article from Cardiff university published by (HESA in June 2020) a degree with not only give students the opportunity to gain an in-depth knowledge of their chosen subject but also will develop transferable skills such as communication, presentation, and problem-solving skills, while enhancing their ability to work as part of a team. Week: 7 Independent study – Week 7 Writing activity Write the Conclusion element of your reflective writing on the aspect you have chosen (from the three below) for your assignment. The word count for this is 225. 1. Your study, work, and life balance 2. Your weekly independent study tasks 3. Technology in your ARUL student life Bring your work to the next lesson so we can look at it and give you some feedback. My study, work, and life balance CS1 SID:336215 Conclusion Taking everything into consideration, what measure of things and alternative I could have done and what I have learnt about my study, work, and life balance. As a single parent committing yourself it was a difficulty to dedicating yourself to three years of study, coursework, revision, exams and managing workload and getting into routine. Firstly I will by studying effectively, made organising my work a little more fun by using measure of planning out my work and making a schedule which will help me feeding more in control by breaking it down big task into small manageable steps adding one or two of my daily to do list. Secondly I have manage to built relationships with the entire university to get access to resource that i need to achieve my goals another relationship that I found valuable was the teacher, the support of those professor made a big difference in my life some of who the professor was drawn to non-traditional student like. Nevertheless my personal develop teacher encourage me to enrol on the employability skill, volunteer doing summer, internship, working experience and placement, with all of this I can assure a career boost and also to enrol on extra online writing communication course to enhance my writing skill furthermore I can say fond of asking my teacher for help. This semester my communication teacher made it necessary by checking our writing every week and giving us feel back this is building my confident in my writing skill. Week: 8 Independent study – Week 8 Writing activity Write the ACTION PLAN element on the aspect you have chosen (one from below) for your assignment. The word count for this is 225. 1. Your study, work, and life balance 2. Your weekly independent study tasks 3. Technology in your ARUL student life Bring your work to the next lesson so we can look at it and give you some feedback.