Final Reflection

Throughout the course of English 2035, I learned how to become a more professional writer and how to tackle any writing issues that I may have been struggling with. With the class being centered around real world situations, I feel that I now have the ability to communicate professionally with important people, such as future employers. This ties in with communication skills, both with business professionals and while working with groups. I think that being forced to work with the same group for an entire semester allows people to respect other’s ideas quite well. As for dealing with writing issues that I experienced, I think that by doing assignments, such as the Metawritings, I was able to seek out issues in my writing and do my own work to improve them. I think that by having the class learn how to correct our own individual errors, we were able to learn how to problem solve for things that were actually relevant to our own writing.

Though I was challenged during this project, I wish that I could have had a longer amount of time to work with Big Hollow. In reality, our group did set up a lot of long term projects for them (i.e. the internship and the co-op video advertisement), but I feel like we could have done more. I am not exactly sure what more we could have done; however, that did not stop me from wanting there to be more for our group to do at times. Going into the project, Big Hollow did not have a numerous amount of tasks they were looking to accomplish. I believe that we achieved most, if not all, of the attainable goals set for us. That being said, perhaps we needed more tasks; other than that I think that I learned everything I could from the project as a whole.

I think that I will definitely be able to use the material I learned in this class throughout the rest of my time at college, as well as when I reach the professional world. In general, I will be able to use all of the various techniques for writing in all of my papers from this point forward. These techniques include information from both Purdue Owl and Writing Commons. Now that I know that these websites exist, I can now go back and use them for any potential questions that I have about writing. If I apply these skills and techniques correctly, I will be able to succeed and do well with any future papers. As for my professional career, I am currently undeclared. I have been giving my field of study much thought lately and have been leaning toward journalism. If I do choose to go this route, it is very evident that I will need these writing skills in my every day profession. I will need to learn how to write in specific newswriting styles and whatnot, but I will obviously need to have the basics perfected first. If I happen to pursue something other than a writing career, I will still need to know how to write in a professional manner for contacting businesses via email or writing activity summaries for what I have been working on in any given career.

For any future English 2035 students, I would like to emphasize that in order to do well in the course, it is important to do the weekly reading. Although they are sometimes timely, the readings are well worth one’s time as they give tips for how to succeed in both writing papers and working in groups. Also, I would advise future students to pay attention to the rubric for each assignment within this class. In most classes, the rubrics are very general. However, what I happened to notice in this class was that the rubrics were very specific. If I were to have spent more time following the rubric precisely, I probably would have achieved higher grades on the majority of my papers. As for collaborating with others, I was very lucky to get a group that I got along with so well. However, that is not always how things work. With that in mind, I would advise future students that if they do not mesh well with the other peers in their group to push through and make the best of it. Regardless of whether or not a group works well together, it is essential to remember to respect the group and their ideas; those ideas could end up being beneficial in the long run. Going along with that, I would say that it is very important to make sure that everyone is involved with every decision so that there are no major disagreements. I feel that as long as there is respect for each person within the group and everything is kept professional, the end result will turn out well.

Personally, my main takeaway from the semester was the feeling I had when we gave our final presentation and Marla told us what a great job we had done. It was such a reward to have done the work that we had and then to learn how much Big Hollow had appreciated it. Aside from that, I would say that a victory in itself was how much my group and I got along with one another. I really feel that we were easily set up for success because of this. Some of the things that I will take away from this semester are, as I said before, the aspects of professional writing that I will be able to carry on throughout any other document that I end up having to write in the future. All in all, I would say that this class is going to be extremely applicable in any scenarios that I find myself in with regards to writing in the real world.