debragw@deegconsulting.com

Firstly, I would like to thank you all for your financial and moral support. I am grateful for this opportunity and the relationships I have made from it.

Since joining the University of Guyana in 2020, I have been on a constant journey of self-growth; I am learning more about my strengths and weaknesses, discovering more of my academic passions, and regaining my love for some areas I had lost it. It is, however, far different from what I had imagined my University life to be like, and that is because I had not envisioned a global pandemic to begin just before I started my venture. Still, I believe I have made the best of it so much, so I have become fond of online learning because of my introverted nature. In my faculty of Social Sciences, I have come to admire a few professors so far; in my first year at the university, I met Ms. Sinikka Henry. She was patient, kind, and very passionate about her work. It is the kind of passion that seems to transfer. It was in her class I came to rediscover my love for writing. I believe her gentle nature and the freedom she gave us to write on whatever topic we may please laid the foundation. In the first semester of my second year, I met Ms. Coreen Jacobs-Chester; she taught me one of my many politics courses. She had a reputation for being one of the stern hard, marking lecturers; she refused to have us do multiple choice examinations and brought her first exam as a 3 part all essays paper. I remember staying up well into the morning hours writing these essays to the best of my ability; a few weeks later, one of my colleagues expressed how poorly they had done, and then came a lot more agreeing. I was worried that I had begun regaining confidence in my writing, and if my classmates had done so poorly, I could not imagine what I had done. Finally, my grade was released, and I was ecstatic; I had lost a single mark. Since I have been having a merry time writing essay papers, my lecturers assign, and slowly, I have seen I perform better than multiple choice papers, which I hope my third year will be even better than the two I have had so far.

The next professor who has left an impression on me is Mr. Kadasi Ceres, he has taught me two of my politics courses so far, and I have grown to favour my political philosophy courses a little more since I had already had an interest in Greek philosophers. Mr. Ceres is encouraging; his classroom, be it online, has always been a place of comfort. He encourages discussions but does not force them, which I like because of my nature. From reading so far, I am sure you can pick up that I, unfortunately, am not a great public speaker. This I am working on because I believe I will need it further into my career. This semester in another one of my politics courses, the professor placed us into groups to debate against each other. He then said everyone must speak, which terrified me because while I have no qualms about speaking on something I am passionate about, I view debates as a little aggressive. I had never participated in a debate before, but I did my research, practiced with my group, and on the day of, I was the third speaker. To my surprise, I won the best speaker; I am now more open to the idea of debates though I doubt I would be any less nervous.

It has been great so far, and I am excited to enter my third year of University. I also now know what I want to do next in my studies. So even though I have struggled with my health this semester and am displeased with some of my performances, I still mark it as a good one.

Thank you once again for everything.
Annastasia Carter.