Learning Journal - Assignment Example

Download file to see previous pages... Being a foreigner from Saudi Arabia, I spent a considerable amount of time trying to adapt to the new environment both academically and socially. Despite all these challenges, I managed to come through and the reflective journal presented me with an opportunity to take account of the events that shaped my first one year in the university as a master’s student. It provided me with an opportunity to note down my history so that I could learn from it as it is normally said that if you do not learn from your history, it repeats itself. It was the tips that made me recognize the value of learning journal that it is a means to keep tract of one’s academic progress. It presents one with a chance to maintain course, change course or start all over again with respect to learning. I realized how I could be able to reject habits that did not contribute towards y academic and constructive social objectives. Orientation week: brief overview of the key events My life in the university in Canada started on a rather low note because I had neither friend nor a relative in the country. The process of making up new friends with diverse cultural background was a daunting task. The orientation process was conducted successfully but personally, I did not gain much because everything was new and strange. However, it was conducted normally and we were taken through the entire institution’s infrastructure, learning resources, recreational facilities, services, programs and other important details. I think the process of orientation should have been more at least two weeks because for foreign students like me, one week was not enough to start the life around a mix of native and foreign students from all over the globe. In fact, not to me alone, the first few weeks of learning is awfully strange because people are not very free with each other. Almost all students share very little for nearly the entire semester. Learning process is also very slow because students spend time trying to reach out for each other and to accommodate each other’s cultural background (Michael, 2010, pp. 97-123). After a week of orientation, the class sessions begin almost immediately. A number of students still found difficulty in finding their way around in the institution because of slow mastery of the new environment. I did get lost on several occasions and being reserved, it was difficult to even ask. Apart from student’s life, the most affected of all is the learning process that picked up very slowly because of the mix of diverse cultural background, fear, shyness and new order of process (Heike & Helen, 2013, pp. 17-30). Foreign students such as me are affected the most because native students easily understand every process and entire institution. However, I must say I benefitted a lot from interactive forums that were organized to try to break the uneasiness among the students and to start normal socialization process that makes the society of the institution lively. These forums fostered understanding and opened up students to try to get to each other and regard one another naturally. Learning process begun when these forums were initiated but, according to me, the learning process begun after these forums. Training on leadership The sweet dream of pursuing master’s degree in business in Canada was first marred by social challenges that I came to ...Download file to see next pagesRead More