The last entry in this blog will be a reflection on what I have learned over the course of this term. It will look at what I feel I accomplished and learned as well as talking about what areas I feel I am still weak in and goals for the future.
The Good
I have always felt that my writing ability is one of my greatest strengths. At my various jobs my writing skills have always been something I have been praised for and I was frequently asked to write documents. This writing has generally been less technical or formal than the assignments for this course so it was interesting adapting to the different voice required for the course. Because of this I found the reflection blogs easier than the other assignments because they tend to have a less formal voice.
One of the main skills I feel I have gained this term is how to write for a specific audience that may not be familiar with the subject I am writing about. Most of my writing experience comes from writing research papers for psychology classes where the professor and TAs are well versed in the subject matter. I found it somewhat difficult at first to write with a naive audience in mind but I found it easier as the term went on.
I feel that the formal report I wrote was a very good learning experience since I had never written a formal report before and it was nice to learn the skills required to write one in a school setting rather than having to write my first report for work without any previous experience. I am happy to say that I submitted my report to the COO and project manager at Skunkwerks Kinetic and they used it to inform their decision regarding whether they should change communication and task management tools. After reading the report they agreed with my recommendations and the company will be changing tools by the end of December.
The Less Good
Although I feel I have learned a lot during the course there are still some things I need to work on. The main weakness I still need to work on is not using unnecessary words in my writing and keeping things concise. I feel like I have improved on this from the beginning of the term but it is something I still notice when reviewing my writing, particularly on longer documents.
Another weakness is spotting small grammar and spelling mistakes in my writing. Almost every peer review of my work found mistakes I should have caught myself before submitting the assignment. I think this stems primarily from not leaving myself enough editing time between finishing writing the assignment and the deadline. In the past I have found that editing a document the day after writing it is far more effective than editing it immediately after I finish writing it. Unfortunately I found that the writing of my assignments was somewhat rushed due to the large number of projects and assignments required by my other courses. Having never taken an online course before I found it difficult to keep track of when I should start writing an assignment when group members for other classes were trying to arrange meetings.
The Future
I have recently become more involved in editing documents at work so I hope to continue to hone my skills while working on these documents. I would like to be in a position in which I am able to help with the initial writing of these documents but most of my time in the office is dedicated to programming and most of the time I have to edit is when I am at home. Whether I am writing documentation or emails I know that the lessons learned from this course will prove to be valuable in my career. I believe that strong technical writing skills will help me eventually achieve my goal of becoming a project manager at a tech company.