Category: Blog

This term has flown by; I am continually shocked by how fast things are going. In this course, it was baffling to look back and reflect at how many assignments’  I had completed. It seems like September was only a few weeks ago. I have achieved quite a bit in this course. From my definitions assignment to my final report draft, the variety of assignments and skills developed has been vast. This blog post reflects on my strengths and weaknesses in my learning and assignments, and additionally includes some of my analyses on the translatability of the skills I have learned in my undergraduate degree so far.

Weaknesses in my learning

I believe that it is important to acknowledge one’s weaknesses. With me, I know that I am not the best learner. I tend to procrastinate things such as readings to the point that they might not get done. In this course, I made a conscious effort to complete readings and was largely successful. I believe that the readings in this course helped me be successful in my work, allowing me to have the theoretical understanding to complete them appropriately and to a high level.

Strengths in my learning

One of my strengths in learning is that I believe I am a quick learner. I can typically pick up a new concept quite quickly. This skill helped me be successful in this course by allowing me to understand the writing concepts that are integral to this course. I also learned a lot from my course mates. Their abilities and insights on both their work and my work propelled be further towards success. For that, I am grateful for their help.

Weaknesses in my assignments

Similar to my learning style, I tend to complete assignments quite late. I work best under pressure and find it challenging to complete work days before it’s due; the deadline motivates me the closer it gets. As a result of this, I often completed my assignments for this course closer to the deadline than I would have liked. This is something that I am continuously working on, and hope to complete my work earlier than later in the future.

Strengths in my assignments

Despite my habit of completing work closer to the deadline than I perhaps would like, I still think my work is of good quality. I am a confident writer and do not find it particularly challenging to communicate my thoughts through y written work. Because of this, I am usually happy with the work I turn in, regardless of when that may be. For this course, I made sure to be extra attentive in completing my assignments with care as I believe this course is highly transferrable to both my academics and my work.

Translation of skills learned in my undergraduate degree

This course has completely reinforced the skills that will aid me in being successful in my future. From graduate school application to professional job applications, the skills I have learned this term will stay with me and aid me for many years to come. As a student, I strongly believe the best skill I have learned in my undergraduate degree thus far is the ability to think critically. This skill, developed over thousands of hours doing a variety of different exercises, can be applied to any situation. That, I believe, is the true worth of a post-secondary degree. Outside of explicit skills, I will carry a lifetime’s worth of memories, friendships, and experience that have shaped who I am today, and will no doubt continue to shape me as I explore life as a professional.

Creating the Web Folio was a very nice way to wrap up the term. In this assignment, I had the opportunity to review and reflect on pretty much all of the work I had already done this term. I enjoyed reading over and revising the work that I completed this term; I can definitely tell that I have improved quite a bit throughout the duration of this class.

To complete the Web Folio, I repurposed my original ENGL 301 Blog, which was not too challenging. I had initially put quite a lot of effort in creating my ENGL 301 Blog, so I was already happy with the look and feel. All that I needed to do was slightly edit the page titles and content, rearrange some things, and revise my work slightly. I found that not too many revision were necessary; I was already quite happy with my work.

Unit Three introduced me the concept of writing with YOU Attitude. This was a concept that I had recognized in written work but had never been formally described to me. While the concept was initially difficult to grasp, it would ultimately be helpful in adding an extra layer of professionalism to my written work. I am confident that I will carry this skill with me throughout my professional writing.

Unit Three also introduced the formal report draft. I found the process of preparing to write the draft to be one of research, critical thought, and a lot of reflecting. My topic centered around finding ways to improve the UBC Residence Hall Association (RHA), an organization that I have been involved in for quite some time. A lot of the research that I needed to do was reflection on my past experiences and articulating theme into suggestions for improvements. This was not a new task for me with this organization; I have previously created reports with suggestions for improvement that have been heard by RHA Cabinet and adopted into actual changes. It is my hope that this report will follow a similar process. 

I additionally ahd the opportunity to conduct 1:1 interviews with the RHA executives to discuss positional duties and their respective workloads. I found this process to be helpful in not only gathering information for my report, but also for solidifying my working relationships with them. It’s hard to maintain relationships in a pandemic, and ever harder to create new ones, so I found this to be a welcome unexpected benefit of this project. I learned a lot about my topic, much of which will be discussed in my report. 

I am looking forward to completing my report and presenting my findings to the RHA Cabinet in early 2021.

Formal Report Draft

Unit 2 has brought many new and exciting challenges for me. However, creating a LinkedIn profile was not one of them! I had previously already had an active LinkedIn account that I regularly updated and used to connect with others. Therefore, the creation process was quite simple! I find it valuable to have a LinkedIn profile that can be used to connect professionally with peers and potential employers. I found the feedback my peer reviewer gave to me to be quite useful at bringing my profile that one step further. I also benefited from reviewing my peers’ profiles, as I was able to take pieces that I liked in terms of organization and flow, and apply them to my own.

To be completely honest, the process of brainstorming went quite smoothly. I found that my deep understanding of the organization I chose, the UBC Residence Hall Association (RHA), allowed me to easily identify ways to study it and suggest improvements. Additionally, these ideas I wrote down were ideas that I had had before but had never articulated in such a way as I did for the report proposal. I am excited to finally formalize them into a report that will hopefully usher in some new discussions and potential changes down the road with the UBC RHA. I really do not have any questions about how this will come together. I have written lengthy feasibility reports before, and am familiar with the process. I anticipate that this formal report will flow similarly, with my research and findings supporting recommendations that I will make to the decision body of the UBC RHA.

Throughout this course, I have greatly enjoyed conducting peer reviews. For the formal report proposal, I had the privilege of peer reviewing Rodrigo’s formal report proposal. In Rodrigo’s proposal, which was well written, I gained an understanding of what a climbing co-op is, and more specifically, what the Rockfish Climbing Co-op is and why it is important to Rodrigo. Beyond the content, I gained valuable insights on how to write a report proposal from the way that Rodrigo structured his. In my own writing, I learned different ways of presenting my “voice” through my written work. Each of my peers have different writing voices, and I found it interesting to compare theirs to mine. This has allowed me to consider different ways of saying things on paper and has made me a more effective writer.

Peer review of Mitchell Prost’s Report Proposal

 

Going into the definitions assignment,  I initially thought that I would have no issues. I quickly found that it was quite challenging for me to choose a term. I chose a couple terms and restarted a couple times before I eventually landed on “Lysosome” as my final choice. Once I had finally found my final term, the writing went smoothly. I found the parenthetical and sentence definitions to not be too challenging. The expanded definition definitely taught me the most, as I learned a lot from the textbook what goes into writing an expanded definition.

I greatly enjoyed the peer review process. I reviewed Amnia’s Three Definitions, and Jose reviewed mine. For Amina’s, I was fortunate in that their Three Definitions were quite excellent. The only recommendation that I made was the addition of a parenthetical definition for the word “ampoule” as I did not think their intended audience would know what this meant. I have learned that Amnia is a diligent and skillful writer, as I had little improvements to suggest. I am excited to work with Amnia this term and develop my writing alongside them.

I wholeheartedly agreed with Jose’s peer edit of my own Three Definitions. Many of the suggestions centred around grammar and word use. I found it easy to understand Jose’s suggestions and even easier to implement them in my revision.

The editing process was quite easy. I had some great comments from Jose that were easy to interpret and include in my revision. While editing my own Three Definitions, I gained some perspective into my writing style. Where I had thought that I was strong with my use of commas, I found that I had room to improve. A couple of my sentences needed grammatical revision, which I was able to do thanks to Jose’s diligent edits.

Overall, I have started to appreciate the world of technical writing through reading the textbook and interacting with my peers in my group. I am excited to continue this term and learn some new and useful techniques.

 

Find my revised Three Definitions here.

Find my peer’s review of my Three Definitions here.