Adrian Huerta

Professor Lago
English in Literature
Reflective Essay
Never in a Million Years
You have Professor Lago? Get out now if you care about your grade! said a colleague
of mine on the first day of class. Before professor Lago walked in the room, I already had a
negative image of her. From all the comments I heard, I came to the conclusion that this class
would probably be the hardest. My two options were to keep the class and hope for the best, or
switch to an easier professor to get an easy A. The deciding factor that led me to stay was that
my writing was not good. Realistically speaking, I would have received at least a B in either
class because I was a hardworking student. After much consideration I decided to stay because if
anyone could improve my writing and take me to the college writing level, it would be a tough
professor like Lago.
When I first came into Experience in Literature I was upset that I had received a B+ in
College Writing because I wanted an A. I was not that upset because I knew my writing was not
at an A level yet. I knew that throughout my college career, the writing assignments would only
get tougher and the teachers expectations would only make things harder. Professor Lago knew
this so she pushed us beyond our comfort zones. She threw readings after readings, pages after
pages, essays after essays to the point where we really hated her. We cannot hold a grudge
against her because she did this with good intentions. College was not meant to be easy because
the real world is not. In the real world, employers are going to constantly push you out of your
comfort zone and you cannot quit, but instead you have to exceed.
Although we all complained about doing an endless amount of work, I for one cannot say
that it was all in vain. One of my biggest problems in writing was my vocabulary. Coming from
the ghetto speaking with a high vocabulary was look down upon. Everyone still spoke with
elementary words and that is what led my essays to sound as if I was still a kid in high school.
However, constantly reading and writing helped improve my vocabulary because it exposed me
to new words and the context in which it should be used. Another problem I had with my writing
style was the way I analyzed and incorporated passages into my essays. Reading essays that I
wrote in College Writing I realized I wrote essays as if it was a formula. Monotone sentence after
the other. After the numerous times professor Lago had us practice analyzing quotes, it became
second nature to me and my transitions between paragraphs flourished. Although I never realized
how much my writing improved in class, I did realize in my Foundation of Civilization class.
Before I mastered analyzing I received an 80 on my research paper. Towards the end of the
semester and already having an extensive knowledge of analyzing I submitted a second paper
and to my disbelief I had received a perfect score. That was something I would have never
imagined being possible.
Improving my writing did not just come from coming to class and listening. There was a
lot I had to do to improve my papers. Each time I submitted a paper, there was a lot of work that
was put forth. Each rough draft was reviewed at least twice by my peers, and each time I
believed I had an A paper. To my surprise I would only get a B-. At first I wanted to give up, I
was hopeless, my best efforts were only B material. I wanted to give up and force myself to think
that I would not need this in life, especially since my major was financial planning. Everything I
would deal with in the future would involve numbers, but I could not fool myself. Eventually I
would have to submit analyzed reports on current stocks, bonds, etc. So I decided that if I really
wanted to receive an A on my papers, I would have to do things I never done before.
To step up my grades, I knew that this last essay had to be exceptional and worthy of an
A. Like most of my rough drafts I wrote continuously without checking to see if any of my
arguments were concrete. After reading my finalized rough draft I knew there was still
something missing. There was one crucial piece that would prevent me from receiving an A. I
did something I would have never done in a million years, nor would I ever encourage someone
to do because of my hatred towards books. For the first time in years I went to my local library to
take out The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and read it in one day. After reading
the story and overlooking my finalized rough draft I noticed there were some arguments that
were not true. Not only did I correct false statements, I was also able to analyze what the authors
true intentions were because the book was an autobiography.
If it was not for professor Lago being a tough teacher I would have never pushed myself
out of my comfort zone. Sure I could have easily switched out and received an easy A but I
would only be fooling myself. I would have received an A but at the expense of continuing to
write as if I was still in high school and affecting me in the long run. Sure the course was
intensive, but if you did what you had to do than you would have learned a lot. That is what the
real world is about, doing what you have to do to succeed in life.