We’ve Come A Long Way.

Going into this course, I thought I knew a lot about writing and that I was a great writer given how many “Grade A” papers I’ve written throughout my time at UBC. I thought I was familiar and comfortable with professional writing given my experience in a corporate office. I can easily say now that I was wrong.

Right away, I knew I was going to experience a lot of growth over the summer while taking this course. Looking back, I remember my first assignment and how much Dr. Paterson had to say about my use of personal pronouns and being too “wordy”. I was forced to readjust my writing for the course immediately, already learning so much within the first week. Being in psychology and commerce, I am very used to writing documents with APA format, and switching back to MLA for this course was a wonderful refresher for me. Although it took a couple of tries to get my citation formatting correct, I eventually was able to succeed with the help of peer reviews.

This was a challenging course to keep up with. This was also my first online course taken for my degree which was a learning experience on its own. Balancing a full-time job and a family move on top of course work in a different time-zone, I was forced to time manage to an extreme level. With sometimes multiple assignments due each week, I learned to write smarter, faster, and more efficiently to ensure deadlines were met and timely completion; there wasn’t time for me to sit down and work on one assignment for hours. Time management is something I thought I excelled at this summer, never having a late assignment, and sometimes turning in assignments days before a deadline while still maintaining quality in my work.

At the beginning of this course, I stated the following on the home page of my student blog:

I do not look at this course as simply an academic credit or class, but as a professional development opportunity that touches on a variety of key topics within the practice of self-growth.

Having experienced this course in its entirety, I still stand by my statement. I have learned skills in this course that I will carry with me for the rest of my student and professional career. Going into a field that’s predominantly within a corporate environment, the documents I have learned to draft and the tone I’ve learned to write with will be beneficial in all of my professional settings. With the skills I’ve learned, I also feel that I will be able to combine them with the empathetic leadership qualities that I value and be the effective leader that I would like to be.

I would like to thank my writing team, The Scribes, for being so helpful and supportive throughout the summer. They were always available for questions, discussion, and support. Their peer reviews were a monumental factor in improving my writing. I have learned so much from each of them.

I would also like to thank Dr. Paterson for all of her support and availability in answering any questions or concerns I may have had. Thank you for teaching us all such valuable skills.