Laura Gurrola

Sophomore Year - Semester 1 Reflection

During the middle of this first semester, I was introduced to a new project in my World
History class that would help me recognize multiple perspectives of people from the past put into
serious situations. The project that I was to complete was to write multiple letters as if being
different types of people writing to loved ones during World War I. Mr. Dewaele, my World
History teacher at the time, introduced the class to this project because it would allow us students
to recognize multiple perspectives from citizens of England, France, and Germany during WWI
and understand the conflicts in the situations different types of people faced. A small portion of
the writing of the letters was to be able to physically recognize and understand the perspective of
soldiers serving in the war and being able to visualize the situations the men faced everyday
when fighting for their country. Our teacher made us sit in trench-like positions through an entire
class period to help us get a sense of the surroundings and situations men were faced with
everyday for long periods of time. After this, we went into writing the letters, where I had to try
to imagine myself in the situation where I was an English young-adult recruited into the English
army. I also had to write letters as if I were the soldiers wife, a German citizen, and a French
citizen. The more I wrote the letters and learned about WWI, the more I was able to recognize
the perspectives of the people who faced challenges throughout the war. I learned to partially
understand how it would feel if I were joining my nations army, see a loved one go off to war,
being a part of a nation who lost a war, and vice-versa.
As an American born in the 1990s, I had no prior understanding or perspective on
others war experiences, but prior lessons about World War I and the involvements of multiple
countries in the war helped me. Before this project, I wouldnt have been able to effectively write
letters as others and physically imagine myself in a war-like situation. But now, I am able to
recognize multiple perspectives in a way in which I think of citizens from other countries in a
different time period and try to visualize myself as them and understand what they are going
through. Not only that, but now I am also able to manage different perspectives in my mind at
the same time.
During this school year, I had the opportunity to visit Cal State Fullerton through a
college tour field trip, which helped develop my college and career readiness much more. This
college field trip was funded by the school and required students who wanted to attend the trip to
fill out an application. In this application, I needed to go onto Cal State Fullertons website and
learn about their academic programs and anything else that would interest me. Once I was on the
colleges website, I learned that CSU Fullerton contains a College of Humanities and Social
Sciences. I am still not quite sure about what career path I want to pursue, but I was surprised
and glad that CSU Fullerton had a college that contained programs I have been interested and
looking into. When I was actually at the college, a former VISA student met with us and she
helped me learn about certain aspects of the college life and I had a better understanding on
how much more I needed to focus on school. Visiting the actual CSU Fullerton campus also
made me think about the college as a place for me to apply to in the future.
By the end of the college tour, I had gained so much knowledge and information about
the application process for Cal State colleges. Before this trip, I did not know that the online
applications for colleges open on a certain date and that colleges allow students a substantial
amount of time to complete the applications. After this trip, I also learned that solely applying for
college is not free, but fee waivers can help eligible students pay for their college applications.
Visiting Cal State Fullerton definitely expanded my knowledge on the college application system
and helped me give myself much more options about colleges to apply to.