The Stranger Paragraph Three:  

While I am not going to compare being a second semester senior to residing as an inmate in a maximum security prison, I will say that there are some similarities between the two.  As a second semester senior, I would be lying to you if I told you that I was not counting down the days until graduation.  However, my inclination to leave is not because of my hatred for school overall, but rather I am excited to start a new chapter in my life.  This is the first time in my life where I will be solely responsible for both my successes and failures.   This last week was extremely hard to get through for me because I am constantly wondering whether I will succeed in college.  Everything else seems secondary, and thus I am preoccupied with the notion that my life might or might not turn out how I would like it to.  I think I can speak for the rest of the second semester senior s when I say that this is what they are thinking about as well.  However, unlike Meursault, who will either rot away in prison for the rest of his life or be executed, this senior class’ livers are just starting to take form.  There is no bigger adjustment in life than moving on from high school.  While I still care about my grades, because I believe in finishing strong, I think that most seniors are so overloaded mentally to the point where they have no more energy to put their best foot forward, in terms of completing work.  Thus, having this time to think is almost dangerous, because thinking too far ahead can be damning.  Second semester seniors do not feel trapped behind prison bars, but rather feel like inmates who are just released from prison, simply wondering if they can fit in and be accepted by this world. 

Self-reflection paragraph: 

What a journey!  At the beginning of the year, I was extremely nervous about college writing, as I was unsure if I could make my papers long, but not repetitive, but dense with information and analysis at the same time.  However, I now am feeling more confident about my ability to please college professors with my various papers that I will be assigned throughout my college career.  Throughout the year, I think my diction has improved and that I have started to vary my sentence structure much more.  While I do need to work on making big and bold statements in my thesis, I think have improved in this area overall as well.  Another aspect of my writing that I need to work on is saying more, while not using so many words to do so.  Wordiness has plagued my writing for years, and often is my primary writing weakness.  In my opinion, the paper that helped me realize what a college paper looks like was my paper on the lack of academic integrity in Division I NCAA athletics.  I feel as if I did a good amount of research and coupled that with great analysis.  College papers require analysis from multiple sourced and then combining that with one’s own opinion.  This was my favorite assignment of the year, as it combined my deep love of sports with my love for writing.