This past semester has been a very big experience for me. Not only was this my first semester in collage, but it was also the first time I was truly challenged in an English class. When I first walked into the classroom, I honestly thought that this was going to be a pushover class, on the account that every upperclassman informed me that it was easy. This thought quickly changed when our work load began. The work was not a whole lot, but what we did get really made me think. Not only did this class make me think about many things while doing my homework, but it also made me think about issues while watching movies and doing other trivial activities such as surfing the net. For example, when my roommate turned on Legally Blonde last week, I actually began to think about gender in society and how it related to some of the scenes in the movie. This is not the only way I have been effected by this class; I also believe I became a better writer. First and foremost, I definitely learned how to use citations properly. I remember my first paper got a low grade because of citation errors, but my second paper had no such problems. Because of this class, I have no doubt in my mind that I have been properly prepared to type collage level papers, although I probably have things that I still need to learn. I would definitely recommend this class to incoming freshmen on the account that it does not baby them, it prepares them for what is to come for their future semesters. The discussions were thought provoking and made me come to terms with some real life issues, such as how hard it is for some males to grow up, expected to act strong all the time to be considered a "true man." At times, it was hard to actually participate in conversations on the account that at times I felt like I did not know what to say, at all, but as stated earlier, these conversations really made me think about many topics. At times, I felt like I was being pushed too much into doing too much work in too little of a time slot, but as I said before, it was preparing us for what is to come. If we can not handle these freshmen classes, we might as well stop now, because it is only going to get harder from here on out. I say all freshmen should have to take a class like this, if only to prepare them for what collage will be like, or to maybe even teach them how to think about basic things in our society.