By this time, had a quite a bit of confidence because I had already written a successful speech. In addition, I was very excited about the speaking opportunity and spent many long hours preparing for the presentation. I noticed that my writing was improving but I still remember having doubts about my speaking and writing abilities. As I began college I was worried that I would need to write. I remember thinking to myself; how could I avoid writing? I knew that if I got a job I would be required to write letters and reports. I remember beginning to prepare for a college exam and that same fear of writing came over me again. I remember thinking, how would I pass my English composition test if I could not write? Searching the Internet I found a preparatory course for the English composition test. As I started the course my goal was to just pass the English composition test, and try to avoid ever writing again. After sending in an essay to the teacher, he replied with horrible news.

This did not mean I was all the way to success yet. I got a bad grade on a writing assignment and was very discouraged when the person told me that my writing needed a lot of improvement.

The news was very discouraging to me because I did not understand how I could be back to square one. I still felt that I had...

I then remembered thinking to myself that I was going to overcome my negative fears and learn how to write more effectively. Then, I started to realize that the quality of my writing slowly improved. I was improving my "learning curve" and was learning faster and incorporating the experiences of failure into my subconsciousness and learning from them. With each attempt, the next writing assignment was better that the previous one and I am now at a much higher level of writing proficiency.
A strength is that I have now learned to identify my weaknesses and them to learn from my mistakes. Although this was humbling, it has been useful. Another weakness that I still have is my shyness. I have now partially overcome this bad weakness because of reflections that I wrote down in a reflective essay. I then did not feel as self-conscious. I reviewed my writing and the realized the recurring issues. I then highlighted these and because nobody would see me and zoned in on them as priorities for improvement. This all has helped me to become much more confident. I have found it much easier to speak up in all of my speech and writing related classes and to speak persuasively with my classmates. I will now be able to use this newfound special confidence to do better in school and in finding a good job.