After four months of ENGL 301, I have gained a lot of knowledge on technical writing in a professional setting, such as report proposal, progress report, formal report, business letter. Besides, I have improved many practical skills as well, such as how to effectively expanding professional network and how to schedule my time for a huge project.
My strength
Having various working experiences before, I am very proactive and good at communicating with my team. I created a team group chat where we exchange ideas and ask questions. I had a wonderful time with my team.
Besides, I showed strong organizational skills and time management. Even though my summer schedule was pretty busy, I still managed to finish every assignment on time with decent quality and never delayed any assignment or communication with the instructor and my peers.
My weakness
Even though I finished most of the assignments with good quality, I have to mention that I need to read the requirement/ instructions more carefully. For example, in the progress report, we were asked to attach the survey questions in a survey tool provided by UBC. However, I missed that piece of information and posted my survey questions on my personal blog as text. It took a few days to change back to the survey tool, which has wasted some valuable time for survey distribution. from this experience, I have learned that I have to carefully read and understand the requirements. And I found out that reading them out loud would help me concentrate on those tiny details.
Skills, strength and my career
Throughout the course, I have learned many useful and practical techniques on technical writing and communication in professional settings. I was exposed to various communication documents, such as memos, peer reviews, business letters.
Here are some skills I have gained or improved in ENGL 301:
Writing a proposal
Knowing and specifying your audience in the proposal is one of the most important things in writing a proposal. In my very first draft, I did not address my targeted audience which was pointed out by my instructor later. This helps remind me of knowing your audience whenever you write to someone.
Time management and organizational skills
Even though the incident of survey tool wasted a few days in my report project, I still managed to keep up with my scheduled timeline and received over 120 responses on my survey. Such strong time management skills would help me in my future career.
Web folio and networking skills
ENGL 301 guided me to build my very first personal website which could show great benefit in my future job searching. Also, I have learned a lot about effectively expanding my professional network via various tools such as LinkedIn.