This term has flown by! I’m continuously shocked by how fast time passes. As my time at university comes to an end and graduation approaches, I am even more surprised at how quickly life moves past us. In this course, it was an awesome experience to look back and reflect on all the assignments I had completed in a few short months. From the Three Definitions assignment to compiling the Web Folio, I’ve gained experience in composing a variety of technical writing assignments and have added many skills to my writing arsenal. This blog post reflects on my strengths and weaknesses in this learning process and in my assignments as well as insight on how the skills I’ve acquired throughout my undergraduate degree could translate into my future career and educational goals.

Strengths in my learning and assignments

I believe that one of my strengths in learning is my strong work ethic. Even as a child, I have always been driven by an internal motivation to succeed and put out the best work possible. This skill helped me be successful in this course by allowing me to consistently practice the writing strategies learned in this course and self-edit to produce the best work that I can. The peer reviews were incredibly helpful for me to learn from my teammates and receive constructive comments to continue to refine my writing. Their writing abilities and thoughtful insights propelled the success of our writing team and for that, I am grateful for their help.

Weaknesses in my learning and assignments

One of my weaknesses would be that I can overlook minor details when completing projects and assignments. I have an innate desire to jump directly into action and often go straight into completing the bulk of the assignment before taking the time to read over all the instructions. As a result, I might miss small details in tasks and assignments such as using APA citation instead of MLA citation. In this course, I made a conscious effort to read over the instructions more than once as each assignment had different criteria. Although I was largely successful this term, this is something that I am continuously working on and I hope to improve my attention for detail in the future.

Translating my Skills and Strengths into Support for Future Career and Educational Goals

My skills and strengths as a student will support my future career and educational goals because I will demonstrate a strong work ethic and continue to put my best foot forward in whichever graduate degree program or career I end up working in. From this course, I have gained a variety of technical writing skills that will be directly applicable to my future career development. In job searching, I learned several tips on building a professional LinkedIn profile, resume, and cover letter that will highlight my academic and professional experiences and help my application stand out. Regardless of industry, having clear and concise written and technical communication is a valuable asset that is highly valued by employers.

Finally, I would like to thank my writing teammates and Dr. Paterson for an excellent term and all their help throughout the course. I wish you all the best!

The process of creating a Web Folio was a nice way to wrap up the term. This was the last big project before the end of term and although I truly enjoyed this writing class, I was excited to finally submit this assignment. To complete the Web Folio, I repurposed my original ENGL 301 blog which was not too challenging. Since I was quite satisfied with most of my assignments, the majority of my efforts went towards editing page titles and contents and choosing a well-suited template. I had initially put a lot of effort in each assignment so I found that only minor revisions were necessary and I was quite happy with most of my work. Prior to this course, I had never used WordPress and was very unfamiliar with blog posting and webpage design. When compiling this Web Folio, I was reminded once again of the beginning of term and the challenges that came with editing the site identity and page layout. After much internal debate about the look and feel of my blog, I finally decided on one and continued with the rest of the assignment.

In this assignment, I had the opportunity to reflect on all the assignments I have completed this term and recognize the hard work that my peers and I have put in this course throughout the term. Going back to read and edit all my assignments was very enjoyable and provided a strong sense of accomplishment. I can definitely tell that my technical writing abilities have improved throughout the duration of this class and I am very glad to be taking away useful writing strategies for future use.

In general, re-purposing the blog site into a Web Folio was a very rewarding experience. Although it was almost embarrassing in moments to reflect on my previous writing, re-reading and re-writing was enjoyable. Seeing the comparison between my original and updated assignments made it clear that I had grown as a writer in these few short months.

In summary, I believe that my Web Folio does a great job of summing up my academic and professional achievements in an organized fashion and I am proud of all the work that I have accomplished this term.