1. Write a paragraph about the classes and assignments that best developed your communication skills. Be specific in describing how they were helpful. Basic Counseling Methods (taught by Regina Green and Aaron Welch) was one of my most memorable classes to help develop my communication skills. This course detailed the framework for creating open communication that involved open-ended questions, reflection, summarizing, and the importance of reading body language. This, in addition to advanced counseling methods, involved role playing with these communication techniques in different scenarios. Although these concepts were intimidating at first, practicing what I have just learned helps me solidify these essential concepts in my learning. Oral communication also helped me overcome my fear of public speaking. Dr. Williams also made the experience light and helped me not take myself too seriously. He also stressed the importance of memorizing an outline rather than a manuscript. Professor Walton also liked to divide his classes into small groups for discussion. Although this was already a strong area for me in communications, it helped me become more of a leader in this position by asking others questions rather than knowing all the answers and telling others what to think. Write a paragraph about communication opportunities you have experienced outside of class. What were the strengths and weaknesses that you demonstrated in these contexts? The majority of my extracurricular communications during my time at Central consisted of either one-on-one advising and relationship building or small and large group discussions. In these contexts, a key strength I demonstrated was the ability to...... middle of paper...... experience waiting for God's promise to be fulfilled. From the time God called Abraham in Genesis 12:1-4, it took Abraham twenty-five years to see the fulfillment of the very beginning of his transformation into a “great nation.” There are both successes and failures that manifest through the waiting of Abraham. Such success can simply be seen in Abraham's faithfulness to respond with obedience to circumcision, the sign of the covenant (Genesis 17). However, his greatest failure was succumbing to cultural pressures to have a child through Hagar, Sarah's servant (Gen. 16:1-4). These opposing responses teach me the need to be obedient to accomplish the difficult task of cutting off the things that prevent me from making God my only priority. Also, the danger of conforming to culture to try to accomplish in my own way what God designed and that only He can accomplish.