Personal Narrative: My Personal Identity

Identity is an individual’s comprehension of him or herself. This course has helped me discover my sense of identity. In addition, it has changed me in subtle ways. Honestly, I am a very stubborn person. It is relatively hard to change my beliefs about something. Therefore, this course was a stepping-stone in the right direction. I have changed and developed my sense of identity in three different areas. The first area I have enhanced is my personal identity. To my knowledge, personal identity deals with questions about oneself. I hope I’m not being too vague. It is obvious that everyone has questions they ask about themselves. However, personal identity is hard to understand for most. I researched personal identity and found that it asks questions
Shortly after arriving to Northern Illinois University I began to build up my personal identity. For the first time I came to realize who I was as a person and why I have been placed here at this university. To be honest, I can’t point out something in particular that helped develop my personal identity. There are many different causes for the way I am. For example, there is personal identity tied into my writing assignments from the past semester. I have always been doubted in my overall abilities. My low self-esteem can be attributed to upbringing. I was always rewarded even when I didn’t accomplish my goals. Once I reached middle school things were much different. In eighth grade I started wrestling. I mentioned this in my personal narrative. People had doubts about my abilities before I ever stepped on a wrestling mat. These doubts fueled my will to win. I surprised the people who doubted my abilities. I was one of those people. Sports are not the only activities that bring out my low self-esteem. I have problems in the classroom as well. It takes me hours to write the simplest essay. I can revise a paper five times and still be unsatisfied. In the past four years of high school my writing skills were never challenged. Therefore, I didn’t know if they were up to par. My school didn’t prepare me for college writing. I had it in my mind that I wasn’t going to perform well in my first English course of college.
I’ve always set high standards for myself. Most parents set standards for their children’s grades. Conversely, my parents never punished me if I performed badly on a test or finished a semester with an average grade. Many of my friends are disciplined if they receive anything less than a perfect or near perfect grade point average at the end of a semester. Therefore, my parents have helped form my academic identity. I was in charge of my studying. I was never told that I needed to study. This helped me become mature very fast. My writing skills were broadened once I reached high school. I can definitely see improvements that I have made. The weekly writing assignments have helped tremendously. In high school I rarely wrote papers. I have seen improvements in my grammar, organization, and style. My writing seems to flow much better than it did. It was through the smaller assignments that I gained a better understanding of myself as a writer. I know what I need to do to receive a good grade. Writing is easily connected to academic identity. Writing can determine what kind of student you are. My friend Andrew found out through his English 103 instructor that he could make a screenplay writer. Everyone has a different academic identity. Everyone finds their identity