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The Importance of Work Experience in Life

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Published: Sep 1, 2020

Words: 762 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Works Cited

• Barkhuizen, N. (2017). Communication skills for engineers. Springer.
• Bolton, R. N., & Lane, M. D. (2012). Individual entrepreneurial orientation: Development of a measurement instrument. Education+ Training.
• Carter, M. Z., & West, M. A. (2013). Reflexivity, revolution, and innovation in work teams. Human Relations.
• Goudreau, J. (2018). 7 Time Management Skills You Need to Be Productive (Proven by Science). Forbes.
• Hoch, J. E., & Kozlowski, S. W. (2014). Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership, structural supports , and shared team leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology.
• Jaiswal, N., & Dhar, R. L. (2015). Transformational leadership, innovation climate, creative self-efficacy and employee creativity: A multilevel study. International Journal of Hospitality Management.
• Johnston, C. S., Taing, M. U., & Wheeler, L. (2018). Teamwork and interpersonal communication in interprofessional education: A qualitative exploration of students’ and faculty’s perceptions. Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice.
• Kumar, R., & Meena, M. L. (2018). Effect of teamwork on employee performance: A review of literature. International Journal of Engineering and Management Research.
• Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.
• Wittmer, A., & Honold, L. (2018). Successful leadership in virtual project teams. International Journal of Project Management.

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My First Work Experience and Knowledge I Gained Essay

When I was a child, my dream was to find the work connected with managing people and resources. The vision persisted until it became time for pursuing a college degree, where I opted for a business course in Human Resource Management (HRM). I intended to be in a position to lead people at the workplace. After graduating from school, luckily, I got an internship program with one of the renowned retail companies called Costco Retailers.

The first working experience was memorable because I finally managed to become independent and earn my first money. When I started working in the corporation, I changed my mentality to adapt to the new system. This paper will discuss the experience during my first job recruitment, skills, and knowledge gathered during this period. During the first working experience, recruits should apply the theoretical knowledge in practice to avoid difficulties in time-management, issue solving, and communication with clients and colleagues.

The time-management appeared to be a fundamental problem that I have faced during my experience. It was a requirement that all the staff report one hour before the opening of the stores. This was necessary to facilitate daily planning and arrangement of the work routine to enhance the efficiency of the operations. It was difficult for me to manage time properly and organize the activities of other people. I had to participate in various events and often failed to perform my duties correctly. There even was a period of time when I was at significant risk of being fired. I had to learn how to be time-conscious to overcome the pressure. I solved this problem thanks to applying some time-management techniques.

Besides the time factor, another issue was working under pressure. During the first few months, I was stationed at the customer care desk to attend to the clients’ queries. At this position, several problems emerged that required immediate attention from the top managers within the department. It was challenging to handle some inquiries because of the large number of customers and the nature of their needs. The intensity to meet their expectation was overwhelming, and it involved many commands from the senior staff.

Another problem that required theoretical knowledge from me was cultural diversity. Shoppers consist of people from different races, gender, culture, and profession. Communicating with customers was a nightmare, especially for those whose cultures tend to diverge at some point. Sometimes you might offend people from different cultures without noticing it. Nonetheless, thanks to their interactive nature and understanding, some clients helped me learn how to communicate appropriately.

Generally, working with customers entails fluctuating motions since they come in different moods with various expectations to be fulfilled. Meeting people from different backgrounds increased my exposure and understanding of individuals behave in relation to their culture. The race-tolerance strategies learned during my education helped me to adjust my communicational style.

I thought handling customers was the main challenge of this position, but there was another significant problem. Being a novice, young, and unfamiliar with the company’s system was another terrifying encounter. At the customer care desk, we had co-workers who had been in the institution for an extended period. These workers used to take advantage of the recruits by assigning complex tasks and overworking them. I became a victim and felt exploited since I could do twice what the other workers were doing. From one point of view, such pressure was rational, aiming to increase my working skills. From the other point, I had moral difficulties coping with a considerable amount of work while experienced colleagues did not offer me any help.

It is also essential to mention which new skills I have gained during my working experience which contribute to my professional development. Thanks to this organization, I gained valuable knowledge and skills helpful for developing in this work industry. First, I gained an understanding of how to communicate with customers and colleagues. Before joining the Costco team, I thought managing people was easy to perform and did not require any special knowledge. Thanks to this working experience, I have learned that communication and management is a whole science that requires profound knowledge and well-developed communicational skills. Therefore, I realized that it is critical to apply the behavioral analysis approach to maintain effective communication.

Moreover, the company made me develop and improve my intrapersonal skills. Working with people having different ages and cultures requires self-understanding (Horak & Matoskova, 2018). To be able to relate effectively with other staff members and even customers, I had to learn how to communicate and listen. Communication is essential in advancing the relationship amongst the business affiliates. The on-the-job experience made it easier to comprehend and apply the skills. Here I also successfully applied the gained during my education knowledge.

Surprisingly, technological knowledge was vital during my working experience. Furthermore, being at the customer care desk exposed me to using the computer system to record, search, monitor, and even communicate with the administration. I developed deep insight into technology, and my computer knowledge increased. Through the period, I could use the system to perform critical tasks like monitoring the level of inventory, tracking customers’ purchasing records, and updating new valuable information for clients. In addition, I was able to analyze the trend of buyers, which was helpful for the administration for updating the stocks.

Another critical skill that I acquired during the period was the ability to solve problems. At the customer care desk, clients came with various issues ranging from sales of defective products to poor service delivery. I have analyzed different literature on the topic of problem-solving. Multiple techniques help the manager build good relationships with the customer and colleagues (Funke et al., 2018). One of them is the culturally-tolerant attitude towards the participants of communication. I developed a profound knowledge of managing different circumstances to generate a proper solution by handling such issues. Seeing and learning how the colleagues were regulating similar situations at work was vital and prompted self-confidence. To make a decision, self-reliance is essential as it allows one to find their own answers to the problem.

Generally, obtaining a job after completing coursework in college is beneficial because you can gain valuable experience. On the job, learning makes the whole perspective different as it comes with arrays of experiences both encouraging and demoralizing. Sometimes changing and adapting to a new routine is difficult for the new employees. Furthermore, interacting with various people at the workplace advance understanding and worldview of individuals.

The exposure also makes people gain the necessary knowledge and skills that are essential for further carrier development. Joining the proper organization could impact the level of experience individual gains. If people are ready to develop their knowledge and skills, asking questions, elaborate new ideas, then the chances of attaining new skills at work are high. It is also vital to implement the theoretical concept learned through education in practice. Thus, applying theoretical concepts and constant development contributed to forming a positive working experience.

Funke, J., Fischer, A., & Holt, D. V. (2018). Competencies for complexity: Problem solving in the twenty-first century. In Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (pp. 41-53). Springer, Cham. Web.

Horak, M., & Matoskova, J. (2018). Comparison of training programmes and activities for cluster managers in Europe with respect to their focus on skills development. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Knowledge , 6 (1). Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, October 31). My First Work Experience and Knowledge I Gained. https://ivypanda.com/essays/my-first-work-experience-and-knowledge-i-gained/

"My First Work Experience and Knowledge I Gained." IvyPanda , 31 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/my-first-work-experience-and-knowledge-i-gained/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'My First Work Experience and Knowledge I Gained'. 31 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "My First Work Experience and Knowledge I Gained." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/my-first-work-experience-and-knowledge-i-gained/.

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IvyPanda . "My First Work Experience and Knowledge I Gained." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/my-first-work-experience-and-knowledge-i-gained/.

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Writing a memorable Professional Experience Essay

W hile your MBA application resume will provide a summary of your education, jobs, and community leadership, you will likely have an opportunity to expand on your career in your MBA essays.

However, an essay about your work experience is not merely a list of roles and responsibilities. A Professional Experience Essay is a narrative essay that should bring the accomplishments summarized on your resume to life.

An effective Professional Experience Essay will give the Admissions Committee a sense of the career decisions you’ve made, your most significant achievements in each chapter of your career, and the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired on your career journey. This “walk through your resume” in essay form is your opportunity to provide admissions officers with evidence that you’ve made exceptional career progress and that you have clear potential for future advancement.

This article provides you with the insights and tools you need to build a powerful Professional Experience Essay.

First, we’ll talk about why some MBA application forms ask you to write about your career history, and we’ll share the characteristics of a great answer to this type of essay question.

Second, we’ll provide you with a set of building blocks for crafting a unique and robust essay that summarizes your career history.

Finally, we analyze a sample Professional Experience Essay to illustrate the principles we have taught you throughout this article.

How to Score Top Marks on Professional Experience Essays

You can think of this essay as an executive summary of your career thus far. You are providing the readers in the MBA admissions office with a holistic overview of your work experience, the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired, and how you’ve progressed in your career thus far. So what is the Admissions Committee looking for in an effective Professional Experience Essay?

To score top marks with your essay, you’ll need to provide evidence of distinguished academic and career performance in the top 10% of your peer group and demonstrate your potential for future advancement.

A well-designed essay recounting your professional history accomplishes multiple aims in a minimal amount of space. Your career story must be coherent, concise, and cohesive – it’s not unusual to have to discuss your professional history in 200 words or less as part of a multi-part essay question. If you have a limited number of words to work with, what should you focus on and what should you leave out?

To solve that riddle, we recommend that before trying to draft this essay, you should first define your career goals . Clarity about where you want to go in your career will help you select which elements of your past work experience to showcase in this essay.

That is because a successful Professional Experience Essay will connect the dots between your professional history and your career aspirations. You want your essay to present evidence that you are well-prepared for the post-MBA job you plan to pursue. Demonstrate to the admissions committee you have momentum in the direction of your ultimate career goals.

Of course, you also want to highlight the work experiences and qualities that business schools value , such as leadership, teamwork, and creativity.

Additionally, you want to give the reader a sense that your value to your employers has grown over time. Your overarching goal is to convince the Admissions Committee that you are well-prepared for an MBA and that you have interesting experiences and lessons to contribute to an MBA community.

Finally, let’s not forget that admissions officers will be assessing your “employability” and how well your career story might play with future recruiters.

How can you accomplish all of those goals in a compact and engaging essay? Follow the steps in the next section to construct an effective Professional Experience Essay. To illustrate our guidance, we’ll show you how “Adam,” a private equity analyst applying for an MBA, constructed the content building blocks for his Professional Experience Essay.

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Telling the Story of Your Career

Like a book, your career story should be organized into chapters. Typically a chapter will begin with your decision to take a new job, proceed to the most significant challenges and achievements in that role, and end with a brief recounting of your learning and growth. The bridge to the next chapter summarizes the reasons you decided to take the next step in your career journey.

Your first step in crafting your Professional Experience Essay is to identify the “chapters” of your career.

1. Identify and Outline the Chapters of Your Career Story

Building Block Question: What are the major milestones in your career so far?

Start by asking yourself, “What are the major milestones in my career so far?”. Answering this question will help you to decide how to divide your career into phases. Changing companies is an obvious chapter break, but a step forward inside the same company, such as a promotion, a major increase in responsibility, or a high-profile project, might also mark a new phase in your career. Keep in mind that you won’t have time to detail each stage of your career in an essay – even if a chapter of your career lasted two or three years, you’ll need to summarize the most crucial information in that chapter in a few sentences.

Example: Our fictional applicant, Adam, has two significant chapters to highlight in his Professional Experience Essay.

Chapter 1 was graduating from college and accepting a 2-year analyst position at Deutsche Bank.

In Chapter 2, he took a job as an analyst at a Private Equity shop called Astrix Partners, where he worked for 18 months.

For the rest of this example, we’ll focus only on Chapter 2 of Adam’s Career Story, although Adam would need to write both chapters for his essay.

Once the chapters of your career are clear to you, you should outline each chapter’s contents. Each chapter in your career story should have a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning of one chapter (and possibly the end of the last) is usually denoted by your decision to take or leave a role. This leads us to the next step in building your Professional Experience Essay: explaining the professional decisions you have made in your career.

2. Explain the Reason(s) for Your Career Decision

Building Block Question: Why did you take the job or accept the new assignment?

For outlining purposes, each chapter begins with your career decision: “Why did you leave your old job and take the new one?” Admissions Officers can see what jobs you have had by reviewing your resume. In your Professional Experience Essay, you will explain why you decided to take the job or volunteer for a big assignment.

Ideally, each new chapter in your career was initiated by you and signified a step forward in your career action plan. Even if the career change was unplanned and outside of your control, that’s okay. For example, if you were laid off, focus on the positives instead of hiding the reality of what happened – it’s a chance to show resilience and that you can land on your feet after a setback.

Example: Adam plans to explain that he decided to leave Deutsche Bank and join Astrix because the move fit in with his long-term career plan to become a private equity investor.

3. Discuss Significant Challenges and Accomplishments

Building Block Question: What was the most significant challenge you faced? What did you achieve that you are most proud of?

The next building blocks are the significant challenges and accomplishments during this chapter of your career. Admissions officers enjoy hearing about the difficulties you overcame in this chapter in your career and about some standout moments where you made a real impact on your organization.

Identify the most significant challenge you faced and ask yourself, “What did I achieve that I am most proud of?”. In your outline, jot down quick examples of any standout moments and exceptional achievements at each juncture of your career.

Example: In terms of significant achievements, Adam plans to highlight sourcing a private equity deal, which is quite rare for a young PE analyst.

4. Share Major Areas of Growth

Building Block Question: How did you grow, and what did you learn in this phase of your career? How did you progress?

The fourth building block is your personal and professional growth. You might share knowledge acquired, lessons learned, or skills developed. Often, the most important and interesting things from an Admissions Officer’s point of view are what you’ve learned about yourself in your career so far: a new talent discovered, the emergence of new career interests, or clarity on an existing one.

Your objective is to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experiences from each chapter of your career that will contribute to your future success. By doing so, you ensure that your Professional Experience Essay will provide convincing evidence that you have already made significant progress on your future career path.

Example: Adam’s growth is relatively straightforward. He advanced beyond the transactional activities he performed as an investment banker and is now developing the strategic point of view required of a private equity investor.

After you’ve generated content for all of your career story chapters, take a step back and create a Lead for your story. A Lead is the story’s central message, the executive summary that communicates what your Professional Experience Story is about. If you had to sum up your career in a sentence or two, how would you do it? Some people call the central message of the career story your “elevator speech” – imagine that you had to convey the essence of your career story to an admissions officer during a short elevator ride.

Example: The lead for Adam’s career story is that he’s progressed from a green analyst to experienced private equity professional.

Below you will find an excerpt from the essay that resulted when Adam assembled his content building blocks.

Professional Experience Essay Sample

I was a quantitative economics major at Michigan. Although my education provided me with an excellent analytical foundation, I barely knew an income statement from a balance sheet the day I graduated from college.

(CAREER DECISION) I pursued a position in Deutsche Bank’s leveraged finance group, which provided an excellent foundation for a career in finance.

(CAREER GROWTH) Those two years with Deutsche Bank are where I learned the language of finance and the mechanics of investment banking.

(ACHIEVEMENT) Even amidst lay-offs in other areas of the firm, I was fortunate to be the only one in my start group offered a 3rd-year analyst job

(CAREER DECISION) The 3rd-year offer was tempting. I loved the firm and my team, but I also had an attractive offer with Astrix Partners, a private equity firm with $2.0 billion in assets. I have a real passion for investing. Since junior high, I’ve been trading stocks, and I started my subscription to the Wall Street Journal on my 13th birthday. What’s wild is that I’m now working on the kinds of deals that I used to read about in the Journal.

(ACHIEVEMENT) I really enjoy working on Astrix deals because we have unbelievable access to information and expertise — I talk to industry experts and read phenomenal research reports. I’ve found that I’m good at asking and answering questions like, “What do we have to believe about this company’s position in the marketplace before we would be willing to invest?”

(ACHIEVEMENT) Six months ago, through a family friend, I even helped us source a deal with an optical drive manufacturer in Boston and presented the idea to our investment committee… (example continues)

Final Thoughts

There’s nothing particularly exotic about Adam’s career journey. He has followed a more or less typical path from tier-one investment banking into a private equity shop. Nevertheless, by carefully outlining his professional history, he created a robust Professional Experience Essay for his MBA application.

Although his career path is relatively traditional, he’s managed to connect the dots between his professional experiences and the capabilities he’ll need in the future. By doing so, he’s able to represent his “employability” in the private-equity field post-MBA. Adam’s Professional Experience Story is compelling precisely because it will provide admissions officers with evidence that he’s made significant progress towards his future career goals.

If your Professional Experience Essay indicates professional growth and charts your progress toward your future career goals, then you will instill admissions officers with confidence that you have the skills, knowledge, and relationships necessary to succeed in your career post-MBA.

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Essay Samples on Work Experience

Hospitality work experience: skills development and effective communication.

Introduction First-year students were given an opportunity to have work experience in the Front of House, Food and Beverage and Housekeeping departments during November and December. Therefore, I chose to take this opportunity to gain experience in all of following departments shown previously. I thought...

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Work Experience Insights: Self-Assessment for Personal Development

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Personal Reflection on Work Experience: Difficulties and Conclusions

Learning encompasses both the acquisition of information and the application of skills. My job was a part-time position in one of the world's most well-known fast-food restaurants, and it was an incredible value opportunity. It allowed me to explore and comprehend the work's beauty. The...

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Best topics on Work Experience

1. Hospitality Work Experience: Skills Development and Effective Communication

2. Professional Development Through Self-Reflection and Goal Setting

3. Work Experience Insights: Self-Assessment for Personal Development

4. Work Experience Placement: Preparation for Work With Vulnerable Children

5. Personal Reflection on Work Experience: Difficulties and Conclusions

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• Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks

Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

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Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

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Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

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• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

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At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

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Experience Essay

People love talking about their experiences with their family, friends, and loved ones. You can use your love for that to practice and enhance your essay writing skills. Yes, you have read it right. It is like hitting two birds with one stone. Tell your story by composing an experience essay.

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What Is an Experience Essay?

An experience essay is a composition that requires you to narrate an event that you have personally experienced. It is a type of academic essay that most high school, colleges, and post-graduation studies assign their students to write to improve their writing. Most scholarship applications also require you to write this essay. In addition, some people devise this as a part of their resume when applying for work. 

How to Compose a Riveting Experience Essay

Composing various literature essays will also require you to apply different skills. In that sense, this piece of writing will test your storytelling skills. How do you effectively narrate a story on a paper? You can discover that as you go through the process of learning how to devise this document.

1. Choose an Unforgettable Memory

In selecting an experience to tell, you should choose those experiences that considerably impacted your personal life. It can be either be a positive or a negative experience. For example, you can write about your best day or the worst experience you had. Most people would opt for unique topics, but that is not a requirement. The important thing is how to make your unforgettable experience memorable for your readers. 

2. Arrange the Sequence of Events  

Sometimes when people share something, they often tell another story in between and then go back to their original topic. That’s a no-no in writing your experience essay. It needs to be carefully structured. That said, you need to arrange it by properly sequencing the events. There are available blank outline templates online to help you with this task.

3. Devise an Engrossing Introductory Paragraph

An impressive introduction should contain a compelling hook and a powerful thesis statement . The first paragraph of your essay can be a make or break factor for your entire writing. People often start judging the quality of your composition after reading your introductory paragraph. It sets the vibe and gives them the first impression. It is essential to pay a lot of attention to this segment.

4. Craft a Rousing Statement for Your Conclusion

Your conclusion paragraph should provide the gist and the purpose of your experience essay. In this last part, you should restate your thesis statement and summarize the underlying message of your writing. It should include a personal reflection regarding what that particular event made you learn about yourself. A conclusion for an essay should be powerful enough to rouse the emotions of your readers.

How should you describe an experience in your essay?

Writing a personal experience essay does not only require you to provide the order of events that happened in your experience. Instead, you should include describing what you are thinking and feeling at that moment. In addition, you should also mention the activities that are also happening during your experiences. Don’t forget to include the reactions of the people involved in your story.

What are good topics for an experience essay?

One of the most important factors to consider in choosing your topic is the thematic statement it presents. Do you want to write about love, friendship, or family? You can also choose to compose about the defining moments of your life. Such as the time you faced your greatest fears or the day you met your best friend.

What makes an experience essay different from a narrative essay?

An experience essay and a narrative essay are mostly similar. Both of these writings focus on narrating an experience of the writer. Despite that, there is something that sets them apart from each other. An experience essay focuses more on an individual’s discovery about oneself. On the other hand, the latter aims to inform the readers of how the experience made the writer realize things. Particularly the lessons regarding another person or an issue.

The act of composing this type of essay is a formative experience. In the process of writing it, you can learn lessons about yourself as well as on writing essays. Your life experiences are full of lessons. Ensure to capture the message and convey it to your readers. Secure that employment or that award certificate by crafting your experience essay thoroughly.

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A Reflection on My Teamwork Experience

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