My first year writing class was a class I expected to be the same as any other on my schedule; just another class I’m required to take if I want to graduate college. What I didn’t know was how much this class was going to open my eyes to the world around me. Being one of two people in my class who was born in the United States is something I have never come across but I think it was the best thing to ever happen to me.
For only being in this class for 3 weeks now it has taught me more about myself and the world around me than any other class I have taken has. Knowing how to write in English is second nature to me, I have been taught this my whole life. It’s something, you can say, I took for granted. It wasn’t a big deal, it was something I have been taught the day I started school when I was 5. It was something that I was expected to master by a certain age and it was also something I never thought about twice. Being grateful for the language you speak is something you don’t really see the importance of until you are surrounded by people who would switch places with you any day. I never really thought much of this until I stepped into this classroom.
The amount of respect I have gained for my classmates cannot be put into words. However, they showed me how much in my life I have taken for granted. I am surrounded by people who want to learn English, who want to write in English. I am surrounded by people who want to learn the things in English I easily took for granted or didn’t care for learning. The things I would do to get out of my English grammar and writing classes is truly unimaginable. I didn’t have the drive to learn something I was “required” to know by the time I was to graduate elementary school. I felt as if why should I care? It's not a big deal. It's something everyone does (or so I thought). The will and determination my classmates have is something I have never seen, but I applaud immensely. They have opened my eyes to the world around me and made me reflect on the things in life I am grateful for, and having my first language be English is something that wouldn’t have been on the list before this class.
Being in this class has also made me love this country even more than I already do. In America, you can speak whatever language you want. If all my classmates had their first language be English I wouldn’t even be writing this, we would all be the same and I love how we are not. I love walking into this class hearing my classmates speak different languages and learning about the countries they are from. I love hearing everyone’s different accents as they tell me about their cultures and heritage. I love having my classmates teach me their language while I teach them mine. I love how this class is a reflection of the world we live in. We are all different yet we always find so much in common with each other.
My classmates are the most self-driven and intelligent people I have met in my whole 18 years on this planet. They make me a better person every time I step into that classroom. They make me want to become a better person. Their impact they have had on me (for only knowing each other for less than a month) is an impact that will last a lifetime. Being grateful for the language you speak is something I didn’t even think to be grateful for. It's something that was there but never really appreciated to its full potential. I now see the importance of it and its impact it can have on people. I am a big believer that everything happens for a reason. I truly believe that I was put into this class to help the people around me learn a language that they have always wanted to learn, english. I truly believe that everyone else is the class was also meant to be there to show me how selfish I was to disregard a language anyone in the class would trade places to know to the extent that I know it. They showed me that no matter how small you may think something in your life is, it still should never be taken for granted.
