My growth in becoming competent in the area of effective citizenship is attributed to the hand-on experiential learning of unit four in my NCC first-year experience as a freshman. Growing up I was not very engaged in civic participation. I was a citizen of the United States America but I did not think anything more of it. I also knew enough to understand that citizenship was more than just the stereotypes that I encountered early in my lifetime when thinking about Russia’s Iron Curtain or Mao’s Revolutionary China. With the completion of my first year at George Mason University I have learned that citizenship is a broad and opinionated concept which encompasses many beliefs, ideals, values, and activities. I never thought about my role as a citizen until NCLC 140 Self as a Citizen. I always used to think of citizenship as strictly political participation in the form of supporting a particular political party or the government in power. Self as a Citizen enabled me to question the world around me by recognizing that there are many forms of political, social, and economic participation than I was previously aware of.

          Over the course of my final six weeks as a freshman in NCC, I was given the privilege and opportunity to examine the idea of citizenship and what it personally meant to me. The final written exam, known as The Citizenship Essay, required me to take all of my experiences in class discussion and course readings and combine them to form my own definition of citizenship. The fact that I was building my definition from the ground up gave me a lot of options as to how to go about creating a well established argument centered on various aspects that I thought to be essential components of civic engagement. For the first time, I was questioning my own role in society.

          Reading texts like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Smith gave me an important foundation to work with. I added on many scholars to the list as I chose aspects of civic engagement that I enjoyed and thought were important additions to my definition of citizenship. Within the paper itself I used direct quotes to strengthen my argument by providing the reader with evidence of where my own ideas and inspirations of citizenship came from. As I progressed through the experiential learning process of following weeks, I further integrated course readings that added to the conceptual understanding of my idea of citizenship. In addition to Hobbes, Locke, Smith and Rousseau, the most significant scholars that influenced me were Benjamin Barber, Robert Bellah, Martin Luther King Jr., David Orr, Cornel West, W. Wagner & Julia Owen. Integrating and incorporating texts from weeks one through six enabled me to create an excellent argument for my personal definition of citizenship.

          The structure of the Citizenship essay consisted of an introduction recognizing the broad spectrum of civic engagement which stated my personal definition of citizenship. The body of the paper was designed to explain each individual aspect of my overall definition. The purpose of focusing on every part of the definition and explanation supported by course material was to provide the reader with greater clarity as to the logic of the argument made in the case for citizenship. The conclusion served as the final thoughts of my argument where I integrated my very own personal voice in summarizing the definition of citizenship that I created and the support used in defense of that definition.

          One of the most important lessons learned from the construction of this assignment is that effective citizenship relies on an ability of the individual to engage and participate in a variety of forms of civic engagement. Coming up with my own definition of citizenship taught me that political participation, critiquing the government, practicing rule of law, creating change through the democratic process, contributing to the economy as an effective individual, donating to causes, participating in the form of volunteer service, being environmentally conscious, maintaining a global vision, valuing the cost of freedom and recognizing the voice of the youth are required components of effective citizenship.

          If I could go back and do it all over again I would ask for more time. The argument that I presented in my case for citizenship was strong and effective. I believe that this argument could have been made even stronger if I had more time to further study the roots and historical evolution of citizenship. Due to time constraints, I was not able to read as much material as I would have liked to. With multiple reading and written assignments due, I had pick and choose what I thought was most important to use for my argument.

          Effective citizenship is a life-long learning process. NCLC 140’s Citizenship Essay was an excellent starting point for my becoming competent in the area of effective citizenship. It is difficult to retain the large amount information learned in an eight credit course in the time span of less than an eight week period. The citizenship essay allowed me to pull all my thoughts over the entire course to form a collective analysis of effective civic engagement. I do not think I will ever reach a point where I can stop growing both intellectually and spiritually. Life is full of experiences and everyday there is a new lesson to be learned. I eagerly await the future of what lies ahead.