Hi, my name is Catherine Gray. I am from Carrollton, Georgia, which is a city located about an hour west of Atlanta, Georgia, and about fifteen minutes from the Alabama state line. Currently, I am a sophomore at Valdosta State University, and I am majoring in Office Administration and Technology. My plans for the future consist of a wide range of possibilities. Right now, one of my main goals for the future is to hopefully become a small business owner; however, becoming an administrative executive for a large company also seems compelling to me. Personally, I consider myself to be a creative individual, so a plethora of my passions fall within the Arts. I love all kinds of music, and I love to draw and paint. Recently, calligraphy and graphic design have really captured my attention, so I hope to investigate those art fields and see what I might be able to do with those skills in the future.
Moreover, on a scale of one to ten, with one being poor and ten being excellent, I would rate my communication skills as a six. I would rate my communication skills as a six because I will admit that I am and have never been a good verbal communicator; however, my communication skills in writing, in my opinion, exceed well beyond my verbal communication skills. I have always been a very shy and reserved person. As a child, I was never really one to talk. I always kept to myself and never really engaged in much conversation with family and/or peers. To be honest, speaking out loud in any type of setting truly terrified me, and it still does a little to this day. Such feelings and fears as a child led me to get seen by a few doctors. When I was in the first grade, I was medically diagnosed with a mild case of Asperger Syndrome, which is a social and anxiety disorder that is categorized as a autism spectrum disorder. Such a diagnosis made it clear why I was not on the same social development path as every single one of my peers. Such a diagnosis also helps to explain why I am better at nonverbal communication than verbal communication. Since I have been diagnosed with Aspergers, I have participated in tons of treatments and practices that have helped me to improve greatly in my verbal and nonverbal communication skills. As a result, due to my past and present difficulties, I would rate myself as a six on the communication scale.
After reading through the syllabus, my expectations for this course are that I hope to improve my verbal and nonverbal communication skills. I hope this class helps me to build more confidence in my verbal communication skills, and I also want to develop better writing skills in order to better prepare me to enter the workforce. I am not entirely sure how to format certain business documents, so I would like to learn how to properly do that. Also, I would like to improve more on my grammar, especially through my writing, and to build more confidence in that area of communication as well. Overall, I hope this course helps me to build more confidence in my communication skills
