I joined communications without really expecting to gain much from it; the class was not something that could benefit me in my eyes. To be completely honest it was a blow off class at first sight that just needed to fill in the hour block for me. I was wrong, though. Completely wrong. It took me a semester to realize this, but I did in the end. I can not come to terms with much of a change I see with myself. I have gained such valuable information and skills these past nine weeks. I will not walk out the same person as I did the every first day I entered the class. I have learned that self-disclosure is necessary for growing with relationships and learned to effectively do team projects.

Growing up, I always had trouble talking about my feelings and myself. In fact, I still do today. I feel as if my closest friends don’t even know who I truly am. Trust is a really big aspect in disclosing about oneself and I find myself lacking there a lot. I hate even thinking of the idea of having to gamble on the idea of having faith in someone. It is terrifying to me, so I typically don’t take that chance instead I tell minimal information about myself and hope the topic changes.

But in order for a relationship to grow that trust, the bond needs to be fueled with the self-disclosure from each person within the relationship. I didn’t know this. It didn’t come to mind until the project on self-disclosure was done in class. After it was all done and the class started to move on, I could not help but find myself looking back at it, reading over the material and contemplating the information. I would compare the text to myself and I could not help but see parallels within both. I started to question how would I grow with the relationship if I didn’t put anything into them?

I started to slowly tell bits more about myself with my closest friends. I have learned that self-disclosure is called self-disclosure for a reason –to disclose information about one’s deeper self. This skill in relationships has always been something that I struggled with but now can give thanks to this class for opening my eyes to the importance of it to keep the relationships going.

I am a very stubborn and controlling type of person. I hate being dependent on people, and growing up I have always been independent and hard headed with everything that comes through my path. So taking communications and realizing that the majority of time will be spent on group projects and group discussions was not very easy for me. Through these nine weeks, I have learned that collaboration is key to having a successful group, and not everyone will be one the same page. I struggle with this in terms of letting loose of the ropes and letting everyone join. During the last project, the video project, I was very proud of how equally everything was spread out and how nobody was lacking with their input. I was not controlling and doing everything; instead, the weight was held by all. Group projects were something that I used to absolutely hate but now can say I don’t mind them because of skills they can improve.

I didn’t expect much from this class, but am glad to say I was surprised by the enjoyment and knowledge gained throughout this nine weeks. I am more open with myself and with others, and I am less rigid and stubborn with people thanks to this class. I cannot be more thankful that communications was not a blow off class but a class of knowledge gained.