At the beginning of the course I was so afraid that I would not be able to complete the project, and actually have an interest in my topic. I surprised myself in the fact that the more I went throughout the research process, the more I noticed the love/hate relationship forming with my topic, with of course the end product being love. I have amazed myself, because I didn’t think I was the type of person who was capable of actually producing a piece of academic research. While my paper is not “perfect” I still feel as if I have produced a piece of writing in which I can be very proud of.
My future goals as a researcher are to not stop here, and to continue to use the skills I have learned to revise my current paper and also start looking to other topics of interest in hopes of being published. The amount of confidence I have received from this course has made it possible for me to actually get “somewhat” excited about research; especially because I know that in the long run valid academic research is an opportunity to stand out amongst a crowd whenever applying to graduate school.
