Time flies, I can’t believe the semester is coming to an end. English 301 is definitely the most written intensive course I have taken in my degree. It was challenging at first because English has always been my weakest subject. However, after writing multiple assignments a week, I realized that I was slowly improving. The format of the course forced me to continuously improve on the pieces of writing I have written. I find that it is a good habit to have because we don’t want to get some suggestions on how to improve but never getting the chance to correct something.
The numerous peer reviews helped me understand how to look at someone’s writing and give them some suggestions to help them improve. I learned a lot about coming up with templates and reading repeatedly to see if there are any mistakes that I missed. This helped me greatly when I was writing because I learned to be more careful while proof reading. I find that reading something out loud helped me catch mistakes more easily. It also improved my weakness of being too wordy. I saw that my team members were more concise in their writing. I slowly started to be more aware and tried expressing the same content using less words.
My goal after finishing school is to be a software developer and hopefully own a software consulting business one day. The writing with “YOU” attitude we learned will definitely help as I will be communicating with co-workers and clients on a daily basis. When I was going through the process of applying to coop jobs last year, I often had to apply to 5 or more postings a week. I was overwhelmed trying to create application packages for the applications. I ended up getting rejected for quite a few jobs. Now, I know how to write tailored cover letters and resumes for each job. In addition, the web folio I created would have been a good addition to the application package.
I wish I took this course before going on co-op because the formal report would have really helped me with the final research report and the various documentations I had to write for the projects I completed. It was a long process but all the small assignments like the proposal, outline, progress report and draft helped me structure and write a professional report.
The most important thing I gained from this course is confidence in my writing. It was one of my weaknesses before the course. Confidence is important because a lack of it made me stress over little things and made the writing process more painful. Now, I try to enjoy the process of writing and editing.
Thank you Dr. Paterson for giving us guidance throughout the course and my helpful LLDJ team members for all the support.
