ENGL301 has been instrumental in progressing my technical writing capabilities. It has been a great experience working with students from multidisciplinary fields and collaborating online in teams for peer reviews. The practice I’ve received in writing formal reports, business letters, memos, and more catered to different types of business correspondence have evolved my writing capabilities and developed my pre-employment skills significantly. Although at initial glance the three major assignments of the formal report, job application package, and web portfolio was incredibly daunting, the writing assignments have provided a strong foundational basis for me to approach them with confidence.

Throughout the term some of the weaknesses I’ve identified through the peer reviews and feedback I’ve received are grammatical errors and my tendency to use passive voice resulting in lengthy sentences. For example, Professor Paterson identified that my  lengthy sentence in my progress report memo: “As there has been an increase in demand for Junior Achievement business programs from schools in Vancouver more so than the current supply of volunteers available to facilitate and teach at hand, the purpose of the report is to research effective ways to raise awareness of the volunteer opportunities at Junior Achievement to students at UBC.” could be more concisely expressed as “There is an increasing demand from Vancouver schools for Junior Achievement business programs; at present there are not enough volunteers to fill the demands for facilitating the program and teaching the courses. This report will investigate effective marketing and networking techniques and provide recommendations for increasing awareness of volunteer opportunities and improving recruitment for the Junior Achievement program at UBC”. I’ve defiantly learned to reflect, revise, and rewrite meticulously to avoid these mistakes and with practice I’ve noticed these errors are less prevalent. Some of the strengths I’ve identified are my reflection posts and peer reviews. I always tend to take extra time to mindfully reflect about my learning process and provide examples to back my statements. Likewise, after creating the peer review template assignment, I’ve taken that idea into stride and followed the same guideline to objectively and meticulously provide feedback in my peer reviews. I understand that peer reviews are also a large part of highlighting someone’s strengths and achievements so that they’re aware of what aspects of their writing is strong and what parts may need extra attention.

As a student, my skills and strengths have improved in terms of online presence and learning how to use the WordPress blog platform. Initially at the beginning of the term I had no LinkedIn profile and one of my goals was to learn how to use WordPress to create a food blog in the future. The Web-Folio has been a great assignment to tinker about with WordPress and provide a comprehensive online summary of my “Brand” to cater for my future career goals. In addition, after writing the top ten practices of LinkedIn, I truly realized the importance of having a LinkedIn profile in this digital age so I created one. The peer review Robele provided helped me identify areas I was missing and required expansion. Afterwards, I revised my LinkedIn profile so that it’s complete and individualized, supporting my future career because employers are now able to access my educational background and experiences with a click of their mouse. Another strength that supports my future career would probably be my work and volunteer experience. As a mature student pursuing a second degree, my diverse experiences have honed my communication and career search skills. My experience working in a high paced environment at IKEA as a returns and exchanges coworker have taught me to stay calm and objective in tense situations, much like how portraying the “you-attitude” in the complaint letter was important for reflecting professionalism and accomplishing a goal. In addition, volunteering as a business educator at Junior Achievement have taught me to tailor my language and expand definitions when teaching a younger audience, analogous to the definitions assignment at the beginning of the term.

Overall, ENGL301 has been an amazing experience with learning effective technical writing as well as learning how to use online platforms such as LinkedIn and WordPress. I’ll definitely utilize the “You-attitude” in future business correspondence letters or memorandums so that they’re not misinterpreted in any way. A big thank you to Professor Paterson for teaching and facilitating collaborative learning—the peer reviews were incredibly useful and it was engaging learning from other student’s perspectives. I strongly believe that the skills and knowledge I’ve developed from this course will be employed in my future career search and real life work settings.

The process of building the Web Folio was satisfying as I was able to compile several of the previous assignments and like Lego, “build” my brand and online presence. I started by replacing my beloved Calvin and Hobbes background to more technology focused background. In addition, I updated all my blog posts with visuals, customized titles, and revised them to ensure that they’re grammatically correct. The objective of my online resume page was also updated to portray my interest in the field of health care informatics. Although it’s a bit early for me to apply to any health care informatics job positions as I’ve only completed three computer science courses so far, I wanted to portray my Web-Folio in a more formal and comprehensive manner. I decided to incorporate my biography in the home page to avoid clutter in the menu and present my Web-Folio more concisely.

After the design process, I compiled the revised definition assignment, formal report proposal, complaint letter, and one of my peer reviews. The revision process was made much easier as I could go back and read some of peer reviews my Professional Banters teammates wrote for me. The experience was also quite satisfying to see my progress throughout the course. The short summarizations allowed me to revisit the purpose of each assignment and made me realize how much I’ve learned and accomplished. I believe that my best work definitely portrays my technical writing abilities well and this Web-Folio served as a great learning experience in terms of learning the WordPress Platform and highlighting relevant skills for potential employers to see in this digital age.