My difficulties in MLE1101 class- porfolio 4

This is my first year in university, a big change from high school to the higher education environment, I think. I have, obviously, been dealing with many difficulties and challenge in this new studying environment. My modules in this semester cause me some confused and worried because of my non-speaking English background and many brand new concepts.

Firstly, language is the most important thing I have to master parallel with my engineering curriculum. It is said that engineers are working with formulas and figures most of time. However, in term of language, the way I read and we write also plays a very important in our study because I must read textbook and listen to my lecturers as well as do reports. Naturally, those things are the difficulties for an engineer in general and even more difficult for international students who do not have a speaking English background. I often read slowly to understand what the points are in the lectures, and in textbooks. I also get troubles in writing since I am required to change my writing style, I mean, the English grammars and sentence structures from my mother tongue. And how am I solving these problems? First, I am lucky to take an English class in university now so that I have opportunities to learn more reading and writing strategies from my professor and textbooks. Furthermore, I have time to discuss with my classmate and improve English each other. Meanwhile, in my other modules’ textbooks, I often try to read twice or three times until I understand. Besides studying, I also listen to radio, for example BBC or VOA, to get catch new words and improve my listening skill also. Reading academic articles related with engineering or science helps me to upgrade my reading speed and I can learn new writing style and sentences or paragraphs organizations.

Secondly, English causes me some problems, but the brand new concepts trouble me more. Particularly, although I could know the meaning of the words, I could not understand what they mean because I have to get stuck into the real knowledge engineering and technology to understand it. So what I have done to deal with this big problem is I try to transfer these word- concepts into visual concepts. In MLE1101 class, for example, talking about polymers, polymerization and particle reinforced composite materials, it is extremely to understand those concepts without pictures about them. Moreover, if I still have difficulties with my visual concepts, asking for help from my professors and tutors is also the best way to clarify your mind. Otherwise, studying in a group, and discussing with my friends not only gives me chance to ask but also helps me out discovering my misconception sometimes.

In conclusion, having difficulties in studying is the common things for every students, especially for international students, but the important thing is how you could figure out the way to overcome. To me, trying to improve my own English, having visual concepts and discussing with my friends, tutors, and professor are my way to get over my difficulties and challenges in my university time.