First semester of my freshman year at MCLA was overwhelming to say the least. Especially considering I came from a vocational high school where I only had academics every other week. College was a swift punch in the face when it came to classes. College Writing II was one of my biggest struggles at first. Even though I loved to write, writing this much was ripping that love away. The first big assignment was an essay on “What Is An American?” as if I had any blessed idea. First of all, history has always been my worst subject. Writing an essay based on The Declaration of Independence and Letters From an American Farmer didn’t spark that love any higher. Honestly, I had no idea what I was writing or if it was even English, but I pulled the very few quotes that made sense to me and made an essay out of it. This was the start of it all.
Even though it was clear I had no idea what I was doing, I put the effort in anyway. My professor at the time was Hannah Noel. I wasn’t sure if I loved her or if I hated her, but this first essay was when mine and my best friend’s minds were made up—we loved her. She is by far one of the best professors I have ever had. She was different than most professors, where you write an essay for them, send it in, and simply hope you get a good grade. She worked with us and gave us chances. Our first draft was peer reviewed, where we were able to give our partner positive and negative reviews on what they did right and what they should improve. Then we revised it based off of the advice our peer reviewer gave us. From there, we sent in a first draft to her, who then critiqued us and told us what to work on. With our peer reviewer’s advice and hers, we created a final draft.
Professor Hannah Noel cares about her students and their understanding. She wants us to not only read and write, but to learn and understand. She genuinely wants the best for all of her students. I am now taking my second class with her, Intro to Mass Media, where she is the same way. We read and write a 100 word response expressing our understanding or asking questions we are unsure of. In class or even right on our assignments, she addresses our questions and understandings and help us further understand what we are going. Professor Noel is one of the best college professors I have ever had the privilege of learning from. I look forward to taking more classes with her and learning more from her.