On the first day of the course, I did not know what to expect. Honestly, I thought if it would be just another typical English class like I had in previous studies, where I would study theories. However, those doubts went away quickly as I went through each week of the courses. Every activity, from group discussions to writing essays and reports, made it clear that this course was different as it was practical-focused.

During the course, I was introduced to a lot of new terms and topics that I had never come across before, such as fragments, run-ons, APA and IEEE referencing styles, and many more. Surprisingly, those topics might be very helpful for my future studies and career as well, and I plan to apply them later on. Moreover, there were so many assignments and group projects that really helped me improve my English skills. Writing a research paper was the most challenging assignment among them all. I had to spend so much time just searching for the perfect sources that support my argument. Thankfully, I have learned how to effectively make use of the academic databases, such as Google Scholar, by searching only the relevant keyword in the search bar and filtering the results. This knowledge that I gained has made it so much easier to find more related topic sources.

In this project, I was glad that I have teamed up with reliable and hardworking teammates. One of my teammates, Valensco, was really good at keeping everything organized and making sure we stayed on the right track. He made sure everyone has a task to be completed, which helps our works more planned and efficient. The same goes for Vitalii, who always took the initiative to get things done. Furthermore, he actively shared his thought during group discussions. His contributions were very helpful in completing our project. As for me, I found out that my frequent procrastination on my tasks led to unnecessary stress and rushed work. To prevent such a thing to happen again in the future, I will try to build up more motivation and initiate my task earlier.

However, when the course finally came to an end, I realized how much I had learned. I feel like my skills have grown as things that were initially though for me, like writing essays and research papers, became easier. That being said, even if the course has ended, I am sure that I still need to set some goals ahead. In the short term, I plan to keep practicing my writing skills, such as writing an essay or a report. For my long-term goals, I believe that communication skills are very important for my future career. So, I would plan to improve that part of me and become more confident at it.

At first, coming from a country that does not use English often, I assumed that this English class will be as useless and boring as the one back home, but I was proven wrong after couple of lessons, the topics that got brought up was interesting, although stressful. For example, writing my written response and research paper has been the most challenging part of this English class. Looking back at this experience, I see how much stress and struggle I went through. It was not easy, but it taught me on how to research topics and how to write a research paper properly.

From the start, I felt overwhelmed, I had never written a research paper before, and thinking about writing one is intimidating. I did not know where to start or how to structure my sentences, the sources I found was either too confusing for me to read, and the ones that have a good title are mostly inaccessible, but I overcame this issue by emailing the author for a copy of their paper, and while some authors did not reply, some did which is very helpful for my part of the research paper. Writing my first draft of the written response was frustrating. But after class sessions after sessions, my understanding on how to write a proper essay has improved by learning about APA referencing styles, run-ons, paraphrasing, or how to differentiate between academic and non-academic language, and many more. These lessons and topics I plan to use in both my future studies and work.

In the entirety of this final project, I have teamed with my classmates, Decent and Vitalii. All of them were very helpful, especially Decent who helped me familiarized myself on how to write an essay with the right vocabulary and structure. Overall, they are both a very reliable and trustworthy groupmates that made they finished with their work before our deadline.

In the end, I have to acknowledge that this course is going to be beneficial to me in the future, I feel that my writing skills has improved by implementing the topic we have learned throughout the course. In the short term I would keep practicing my writing skills for me to be able to create a research paper for my other classes in the future.

At the start of the course, it was not quite clear what topics we would cover over the period, what the purpose of the topics would be. It was a little uncomfortable to think that it would be just another English course like any other. As time went on, I realized more and more that this was not at all what I had originally thought. My first thoughts were that we would be writing essays and that was it. Towards the middle of the course, I completely changed my mind because the main work we did was reading academic articles, learning proper citation, proper academic writing. I believe that this work done will be very useful to me as I am planning to go into science after my bachelor's degree. The skills that we have been practicing in this English course are considered fundamental for any scientist. For example, determining the adequacy of an article, how to do it in the most objective way possible, and how to get the most out of reading it. The biggest challenge I have encountered is to write properly in an academic style. I had to look for appropriate words, replace constructions with more formal ones, rewrite paragraphs 5 times. In the end, I believe that I learnt to construct academic texts better.

I'm very grateful to my teammates, because this is probably one of the few groups, I enjoyed working in. Valensco and Decent always did everything on time and with good quality, I even felt I could mess up their work a bit. This encouraged me more to do quality work so as not to let them down. They were both always in touch, never went offline for long periods of time, and if I had any questions about the work, they were there to help.

In conclusion, I was left with mostly only positive feelings after the course. I am sure that the skills of selecting articles, the ability to properly use «search engine» to find specific papers, will have a great impact on my future, because I will undoubtedly link my future life with such activities. And even if I decide not to be a scientist, but to become a trainer in a gym, the scientific approach will help me to be a great trainer there. For example, keeping track of the latest scientific data on what exercises are optimal and effective. So, I am sure this course has been incredibly useful to me.