To:              Dr. Erika Paterson, ENGL 301 instructor
From:         Wei Chen W.C.
Date:          January 18, 2017
Subject:      Summary of Application Letter

I have uploaded my application letter to my blog to facilitate the formation of a writing team for ENGL 301. Please see the attached letter for further details of my application.

Brief summary of the application letter:

• my academic and professional experience.

• mu future career interest.

• my strength and experience in technical writing.

• my weakness in technical writing and what I look to improve from ENGL 301.

Please feel free to contact me if there is further information needed.

Enclosure: 301_Edwin Chen_Application letter

111 1^st Avenue,

Vancouver, BC V1V1P3

January 14^th, 2017

English 301 Technical Writing

University of British Columbia

2366 Main Mall,

Vancouver, BC V6T1Z4

Dear classmates,

I am writing to apply for a position in your writing team and greatly appreciate your consideration. I am a financial engineering professional currently looking for a career change to become a software developer.

I graduated from UBC 10 years ago, with a bachelor of commerce and started my career as a supply chain analyst. I worked in shanghai for three years for Intel managing their materials for CPU production. However, soon I realized I had only been gaining new knowledge for the first half year. After that, the work became repetitive, and I wasn’t learning any new knowledge or improving any hard skills. I knew I needed something more challenging daily, and provided the opportunity for me constantly expanding my knowledge. I decided to pursue a more technical career. Risk management seemed to be a natural transition given my previous business background. It wasn’t clear to me what specific type of job I would like to do until after I landed my current job 5 years ago, with Markit Analytics as a financial engineer. I worked around some amazing people. They were smart, supportive, and I learned a great deal from them. I was constantly challenged to solve different technical problems for the clients and it was a rewarding and valuable experience. Part of my job was to develop financial and mathematical models, where I found my true passion of writing programs to solve sophisticated computational problems. I decided to make a change again to get a degree in computer science so that I am more employable as a software engineer. I am fascinated about machine learning, artificial intelligence, and algorithms design. I believe software engineering is the field where I will be able to make a true difference to change the way people live.

In addition to my career interest, I have worked in a diversified team with people coming from different backgrounds such as math, physics, engineering, computer science and finance. I also have experience communicating internally with project teams, and externally with clients in a professional context. I wrote technical documentations such as release notes, product user guides, product specifications, technical papers. I would like to improve my technical writing skills which I wasn’t always comfortable with, such as communicating with clients, design content or page layout of a technical document, deciding the scope of a technical document. I believe I could be a positive presence in your team so that we could learn from each other and grow as a team.

I sincerely appreciate your consideration of my application and would love to hear back from you to form a writing team. I could be reached at edwin.wchen@gmail.com or through the ENGL301 Facebook page by the name of Edwin Chen.

Best regards,

Edwin Chen

Here is the link for the word version of this application letter: 301_Edwin Chen_Application letter