Hi Everyone!

Doing the class blog at the very end of the year was definitely a good call, I had some doubts at first, partially due to the towering load of rough drafts currently staring me down, but hey, gotta love uni right! Reflecting on the closing statements you all posted on the topics last discussed was great! The questions raised by the contextual understanding of the course shine a new light on many of my other courses, and its pretty evident to me that this extends to many of you as well as I noticed a lot of recurring themes in your posts from our other course’s conversations.

I particularly enjoyed reading reflection by Amy this week, as she asked: what does it mean to be a global citizen? What better a question for the final blog post of the year, for it truly is question that we have all shared in contemplation over the last two semesters, yet answering it seems more challenging than it was before. To you Amy, I say, it is almost harder to answer now that we have taken a bite of the vastness that is academics than ever before, but if we have the courage to try, make mistakes, and learn, I’m sure one day we can all find our own answer to that very question.

Andrea pointed out, and I would have to agree, that ASTU has definitely been an eye opening experience in the realm of academics and writing in particular. For international students who are not fluent in English it is a daunting task to face the strict demands of the professors here at UBC, English isn’t my first language either and I can attest, it doesn’t make sense, haha, it will always remain a rather weird language, but oh well, that might just be me. The transition from high school to University was much easier thanks to ASTU as it pointed out very clearly what is expected in an academic writing format, which was very unclear when looking at the instruction professors gave in their particular classes for particular essays.

These blog posts have made it much easier to communicate thought between all of us I feel, its hard to keep up with everyone in our classes, with our busy lives, but these blog posts really allowed me at least to get a glimpse of you guys were thinking about the things that came up in our classes, and I must say, it was a pleasure. As Devon stated in her post, it has become clear that uni isn’t as much as a free for all as it appears beforehand. The “Hunger Games”, as she puts it, aren’t all that bad, I guess the odds were ever in our favor haha, the UBC community is definitely welcoming and I believe it is in part thanks to ASTU that we have been able to explore many components of this community.

Finally, I would like to thank all of you for blogging and supporting each-other in this format, it was very eye-opening and in one word delightful to do this, even though we have all had some tendencies to curse at our laptops 10 min before blog due dates, as I myself plead guilty, I think its safe to say we all enjoyed this. Its saddens me to say this will be my last post in this setting, so id like to wish you all the best in you future endeavours and academic writing!

Cheers!
-Ramon