“We’re finally at the peak.” I thought to myself.
I am truly thankful that English 301 is a requirement by the Computer Science department. Why? Because I witnessed great improvement in my writing. I joined the course with little confidence in my technical writing capabilities outside the Life-Sciences field. I initially considered my experience in writing scientific reports as a weakness. However, because of English 301, I also realized that my biggest weakness was also my biggest strength. I was able to refer to the concepts found in both English 301 and scientific wring and apply them to our writing assignments and my own business documents.
Throughout my entire university experience, the only university-level writing I’ve taken was English 112. I was excluded from taking English 110 due to my credits from the International Baccalaureate (I.B.) program in high school. I thought that taking this course was sufficient for my degree. Thus, I did not pursue other writing courses after English 112. As I went on with my degree, I continued to expose myself to scientific literature. With this in mind, we were required to create reports that were structured after scientific journals found in academia – especially in my 400-level courses in Biochemistry. Concurrently, I received training in creating resumes, cover letters, and reference letters in the UBC Science Co-op Program for Life-Sciences. Therefore, I felt very confident that my writing skills fulfilled the standards of any job application and research paper. I was wrong. As a result, I struggled to create resumes and cover letters that stood out to employers. Overall, I knew that I would continue to struggle if I did take any effort to improve my technical writing skills.
Due to job instability in Life-Sciences, I decided to change my career into Computer Science because it offered more opportunities for growth and stability. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to relearn how to write and create application packages through the Co-op program. As a result, I applied to UBC’s Bachelor of Computer Science Second Degree Program (also known as B.C.S.). After being admitted into the program, they gave me a list of requirements which included finishing a ‘Communications’ course. In this case, I chose to take English 301 as my ‘Communications’ course.
While taking English 301, I realized that the assignments in the course were both challenging and rewarding. The most challenging aspect of English 301 was overcoming my perceived difficulties in writing non-scientific reports. However, I also realized that I needed the overcome this challenge in order to prepare myself for opportunities in Computer Science. This is was also emphasized by the Co-op program; wherein, most opportunities in Computer Science are found in industry (in comparison to academia and research). Therefore, they encouraged acquiring solid technical writing skills because these were paramount in creating reports and communicating with colleagues in Computer Science.
In one assignment, the course gave us the task of creating a formal report based on our chosen topic. I chose to write about improving the online marketability of my small wedding photography business. It is important to note that I limited my role in the decisions made by the company during my research. My justification for this move was to mitigate any biases in my report, and gather data objectively. With that decision, I realized that I’ve applied what I thought was my weakness in this course – scientific writing – as a strength. Specifically, neutrality and objectivity was my primary principles when I was conducting the study. Unfortunately, I did not achieve all of the goals of my report outline, such as conducting Client surveys after the company implements the study’s recommendations. However, I realized that the true value in the outline was to keep coherence in my formal report. Thus, I’ve adjusted the outline multiple times to correlate with my current findings. I realized that I would have been overwhelmed with the major changes I’ve made in my report if I did not have an outline that I could adjust.
The most rewarding part of the course was the “You-Attitude” assignment. This assignment emphasized the importance of professionalism in communication. Interestingly, my blog post suggested that this assignment should be done at the beginning of the course. I reasoned out that our correspondence between our teammates and the English 301 staff would have greatly benefited with these concepts. However, Dr. Paterson’s blog post explained why this was assignment was done later on: to learn from our mistakes. It reaffirmed my personal views of making mistakes as a learning experience. Overall, I know that this assignment will have the biggest impact with my Computer Science career and photography business.
Overall, the course has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in UBC. It elevated my technical writing skills beyond the scope of Life-Sciences. Not only do I feel more confident writing application packages, but I feel more encouraged to integrate creative freedom in my technical writing. If you are considering reading this and have not taken the course: I highly encourage that you do!
In relation to the title of this post, ‘The Peak’, I would like to share a timelapse photography video that inspired me to be adventurous in my life and career: The Mountains.
As a photographer, business owner, and a Computer Science student – I look forward to the next peak.
