Overall, I greatly appreciated my time taking Business and Technical Writing because I know I was able to get tangible experience with real-life scenarios that can happen in the work force and supported growth and professional development because of these lessons and mistakes made. This course presented several challenges due to health issues that led to late submissions and extensions for priority projects through this course. This was challenging to navigate and I felt terrible throughout the process having to navigate course expectations and compliance while also recovering from major health challenges. In September 2021, I was diagnosed with chronic liver rejection that left me hospitalized for multiple weeks in my home medical centre. As said in my previous webfolio reflection blog, I know that my weakness with the final portfolio is the submission of the formal report because I caught COVID-19 and was at the hospital during the same time frame that the material was required to be completed. I know that because of my health outcomes, this hindered my performance and final submission of the formal report for this course. I took the feedback given to me by both Dr. Paterson and Danisa Rambling and used it to the best of my ability to enhance my final work, which can be reviewed now on the webfolio page on this site. This was a challenging submission due to my health barriers and not being able to meet the required deadlines on time for the final report. I am very thankful for Dr. Paterson for her patience during this time and working together with me to ensure I was still able to complete the assignment. I would argue that my perseverance throughout this course is one of my strengths. I had numerous hospitalizations over this past academic term that resulted in some academic challenges but I pushed through them to ensure I would complete the courses. I did my best, which I am proud of and what was expected of me considering the circumstances of medical issues in the past three months. I am grateful for the patience of both my writing team, Twirling Gold, and our instructor, Dr. Erika Paterson, for their collective support and understanding throughout this term.
I know that the lessons learned throughout this course will support me further as I pursue postgraduate employment opportunities and graduate school. Reviewing the application package and recommendations for linkedin networking supported my own professional outreach and establishing connections with other parties across my current company as well as prospective companies that I would be interested in learning more about. I learned a lot from my peers in this process about proper protocol and following compliance expectations for the assignments throughout the course. A big lesson I learned from this course is always read instructions multiple times, because some directions can be misinterpreted or misread or missed entirely and this resulted in several missed points for me throughout this course. I know that the curriculum this past term aided me with being meticulous when it came to submitting assignments, following assignment guidelines and expectations, and fulfilling expectations set out for all students in ENGL 301. This course kept me on my toes, challenged me in many ways, and supported me with being able to support myself when out in a professional environment. My business and technical writing continues to need improvement, however I know that because of the lessons from this course I have established a strong foundation to support myself post-grad when it comes to applying technical writing knowledge learned from this course to my life elsewhere. I am grateful for the opportunity to grow and improve and know it will only continue after this course completes.
