Meagan Hughes

LR FINAL

When I look at myself from another’s perspective and analyze what and why I do the things I do, I am able to gain a deeper understanding of myself. I have learned so many things this past year about myself, others, and the world around me. I have learned a lot about my strengths, weaknesses, and learning style. The personal experiences that I have had have not only shaped who I am right now, but they have also inspired who I want to be in the future. I have developed several ambitions inspired by what I have learned in college. These ambitions hopefully will be my means of leaving a mark on the world. College allows students to “experience the versatility of [their] being and the independence of [their] awareness.”(Ram Dass) I have used my time in college thus far to learn about my strengths and weaknesses as well different ways in which I want to give back to the world in the future.

I believe that my best strength is my perspective. After taking the time to analyze myself from an outside perspective, I was able to “remain aware behind all these thoughts in a state that offers an entirely new level of openness and insight.” (Ram Dass) I have realized that I look at things differently than any other person that I have met. I feel that this is because of my math abilities and my interest in basically everything. Because I have a mathematically geared brain, I tend to look at everything in a more logical sense. When I study literature, I see the logical side of stories. I can easily understand what leads characters to do certain things or why the author directed the plot down a certain path. Another strength that I feel I have is reading and understanding people. I constantly analyze things that people say and do to try to better understand them. I do this when reading books with the different characters as well as everyday when I am around people. I think that college helped me to expand my perspective. Wordsworth best described the feeling of a student having their mind continually expanding “as if awakened, summoned, roused, [and] constrained.”

My other strength that I realized is that I am open to any type of literature. Every book that we read this past year has interested me on some level even though the topics were very different. I was not able to find a book where the topic was completely boring to me. However, I did not enjoy certain authors’ writing styles. I believe that I enjoyed all of the ideas in the books because I have a general desire to learn. I want to learn about anything and everything that I can. This is why I am a Liberal Arts, Business, and Math major.

I have also learned a lot about my weaknesses. Because I tend to think of things in a very logical manner, it is hard for me to grasp symbolism or often the deeper meaning of things. I am too busy comparing aspects of books to just examine things in context. Another weakness is my time management. I had hoped to improve upon this at the beginning of the year, but I believe that it definitely is not better. Even at the end of the school year, I found myself turning in journals with minutes to spare. I became so accustomed to doing things at the last minute that I never thought to change. I started to even plan on completing them at the last minute, not even considering doing assignments at an alternate time. This prevented me from improving my time management skills.

The weakness that surprised me the most this past year was my lack of knowledge in areas other than math and business. I did not take a single class that was not specifically required by my majors. I never thought that I would face the problem of not taking a wide variety of classes; in high school, I was successful in completing a wide variety of subjects. However, looking back on the last year, my transcript is exactly what my advisors told me to take. Every single class had a purpose and got me closer to graduating. Even as a Plan 2 major, I have not taken any science or humanities classes. I understand that the varieties of subjects that I received with World Literature and my tutorial, The Right and Wrong in Politics, is more than most students at the university receive; however, I want to learn about more topics. I want to truly be a liberal arts student. I know that studying many fields “develops sympathy and perspective, [and] helps us understand others.” (Palaima) My hope for the future is that I never allow my schedule to be concentrated in one or two fields. This way, I will never become bored and will be able to integrate different fields of thought together.

The most important weakness that I discovered is my lack of leadership. I feel that this is the most important weakness that I found because the “Core Purpose of the University” declares it as being “the will to excel with integrity and the spirit that nothing is impossible.” Throughout the year, I never volunteered to lead a discussion and minimally contributed in class. I believe that there are two reasons that mainly contribute to my lack of leadership roles. The first reason is that I convinced myself that I am a math person. I know that math is where most of my strength and passion lies. However, by constantly reminding myself of this idea, I prevented myself from believing that I could have some skill in other subjects as well. Once I started to believe that I could not be a good writer or have insightful ideas about the literature that we were reading, I decided that I could not and would not contribute to the discussion. The other thing that sometimes prevented me from contributing was my poor time management. I often would rush through assignments in order to meet the deadline. Because of this, I would not acquire a deep enough understanding of the material that I could use to analyze the piece. Also, I did not have very much confidence in what I thought about the works knowing that I did not read them as carefully as I should have. Hopefully, in the future, I will be able to take on leadership roles and contribute more in areas that I feel I do not excel in. I feel that as I take a wider variety of classes, my confidence will grow and with that, my leadership abilities.

(Listening to Group Discussion at Turtle Pond)

This past year has also allowed me to discover more about my learning style. In most subjects, I am one the students who is constantly shouting out opinions and answers. However, in World Literature, I feel that I learned the most from listening to everyone. I greatly enjoy hearing other people’s perspective on characters or plot. This often inspires me to develop my own conclusions. In math I can logically follow through problems, but with literature, I need something to spark an idea. As an ESTJ, it is sometimes hard for me to not shout out the first thing that comes to mind. I feel though that I get the best understanding of books when I take the time to consider other people’s opinion and reflect on my own personal knowledge.

In the future I greatly want to give back to the university. It has already provided me with an excellent education and I know that when I graduate, I will not only be competitive in the job market, but I will have a strong base for a lifetime of learning. The university is devoted to helping students figure out who they are and what they want out of life. For this, I will be eternally grateful. I plan on remaining involved with The University of Texas in several ways after I graduate. First of all, I will remain a member of the Texas Exes. Through this organization, I can learn about what is going on at the campus. I also plan on donating to several of the scholarship programs for the university. I want others to be able to have to experiences and the education that I am receiving here. Everyone deserves the opportunity to have a college education and basically discover themselves. My goal in the future is to help ease the burden of the monetary costs of a college education for people who have proven to be qualified to attend the university. Another way in which I plan to give back to the university is through networking with the business school. I hope to remain an active alumnus with in the business school and the Ford Career Center. This networking system would enable me to come and recruit UT graduates for employment positions or internships. I believe that supporting fellow graduates is essential to keeping the Business program strong. Networking with the Business school also helps me to keep the program up to date on what recruiters are looking for and what companies need employees to be able to do.

This class has also inspired me to give back to nature. In the beginning of the earth, “Yaweh took the man and settled him on the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:16) I believe that man has neglected our God given duty, and I want to help nature in Texas in several ways. The first one is to continue doing mission work in Texas where I go with others to build, repair, and clean up various types of (Waller Creek Cleanup) places. I have felt so inspired by nature this past year and greatly want to help preserve it. Working for two hours once a year to clean up Waller Creek is not enough for me. In the future, I will be sure to stick with my mission work so that I can go and work in different parts of the state to beautify the area and help people at the same time. Living in Austin has inspired me to want to work with a charity organization that cleans up places such as Waller Creek or Barton Springs. The places are a landmark to the Austin environment and were “created to please our emotions of place.”(Klinkenborg) The city would not be the same without them. Thus, I really want to help keep them as beautiful as they are so they can continue to move future generations. I am like Joyce, when “he felt too that he was being enlisted for the fight, that some duty was being laid upon his shoulders.” Hopefully, I will work with organizations that preserve these areas or perhaps establish one to do so.

I also have a great desire to give back to Texas. Although I am not originally from here, I believe that I have developed the attitude of a Texan. I love the people and the atmosphere of the state, and I could not imagine living anywhere else. The more that we studied our environment, different aspects of Austin, and the history of Texas, the more inspired I felt to live up to my full potential. I believe that the best thing that could be done for Texas and Texans is to help the education system. The world is looking at the United States and knows that although we currently have a good education system, but we are not doing anything to improve it where as other countries are. Michael Dell declared during his speech at UT that “[American] students k-12 are currently ranked 24^th in the world, but the lack of competition doesn’t make people better.” Mirabeau B. Lamar once stated that “The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy, and, while guided and controlled by virtue, [it is] the noblest attribute of man.” I think that public schools need to be held to a higher standard, and that they should be rewarded for performance. This will create a sense of competition amongst schools which will hopefully lead to all schools being more successful. I do not really want to run for public office or anything related to the field, but I believe that as a business woman I can have some effect on the state. In the future, I would like to create an organization comprised of different Texas businesses that agree to donate money to schools that meet a certain standard. Hopefully, this would be for all levels of education, elementary to college. By helping to improve the education system, I feel that I will be doing my part to help the state of Texas.

Another thing that I have learned this year is how amazing Austin is. It has such a unique personality that encourages people to learn and grow. The combination of the students, the music scene, the businesses, and the parks has inspired me to want to give back to this community. In the future, I want to be involved in a nonprofit organization that is devoted to helping Austin flourish.

(Downtown Austin) Last semester, I worked on a business consulting project where we had to develop a plan to fix some kind of communication problem in a local Austin business. My team worked with the Austin Music Foundation to help them discover the most effective means of marketing to use to gain membership and funds. AMF is a nonprofit organization that desires to “unite, ignite, and revolutionize [Austin’s] local music community.” I want to help AMF’s cause in the future. Through the project and living in Austin, I have realized the importance of music to this city. I hope to give back to Austin through helping an organization like AMF to grow thus fuelling the music. After I graduate, taking a year or two to use my business degrees to aid an organization such as AMF would help me to give back to the city.

I have also developed a desire to improve the business world. This past year has also helped me to realize the importance of staying true to oneself, especially in business. Success can often distract people from living their lives according to their morals. People often focus on earning the most money or acquiring a coveted position. However, practicing business ethics is not something that too many people focus on or even consciously think about. In the future, I want to create a business that functions based on certain ethics. This hopefully will help inspire my employees to work according to these ethics not only at my company but where ever they may work after it. It also might inspire competition to abide by the same ethics. I strongly believe that ethics have a huge place in business; people just need to start using them more and not accepting companies that do not have any.

The last thing that I have realized that I want to give back to is actually a group of people. This past year, my friends have become my family. We have supported each other through hard times and have also had a ton of fun. I have not figured out how yet, but I want to give back to these people who have given me so much. We all take turns being there for each other, but I sometimes feel as though I want to do more to let them know how much I appreciate them. In the future, it is very likely that we will end up in different places and might not be as close. If this happens, I will figure out a way to always be there for them, and hopefully to help them all at some point like they have helped me.

This past school year has taught me so much about my characteristics, things that are important to me, and my ambitions. I know what my strengths are as well as my weaknesses. By gaining a better understanding of these, I hope to fully utilize my strengths and improve upon my weaknesses. I also have a better knowledge of how I learn in different subjects to help me take the most out of every class I take. Lastly, I have developed goals to give back to the things that are important to me. I know feel as though my “dreams [are] as gigantic as [my] surroundings [are] small.”(Hardy) I have learned so much this past year and can only hope to learn a fraction of that amount next year. Newman described freshman year the best when he declared, “[the student] made a certain progress, and he has a consciousness of mental enlargement; he does not stand where he did, he has a new centre, and a range of thoughts to which he was before a stranger.”

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