My experiences in English 21007 (Writing for engineering) have been incredibly eye-opening for me. I never thought the world of engineering could be way more complex than I was originally anticipating. I’ve also done a lot of different writing essays that have made me reevaluate how I think during this course and how I handle myself moving forward. The First assignment I have ever done in this class was the Letter of introduction. It was a two-page essay where I wrote a formal paper to our professor. It talked about my life experiences, challenges, and my future in the world of engineering. Thinking and reflecting on all of that in all honesty, was very scary. Thinking about the future in general is scary. However, I find that writing about all my past experiences and my failures motivates me to do better and improve myself as a person so I can achieve my goals. It also gave me a good excuse to discuss my hobbies. Some of which were video games, visual arts, and computers. While this assignment was incredibly fun, I still had to face some challenges while writing it. One of which was thinking about what to write to fill up the page limit. I don’t consider myself an incredibly interesting person so writing a ton of stuff about me sometimes just seems like constant rambling.
But if I wanna be able to write a letter I have to think of more things I could write about. My goal with engineering is to be able to just discover the unknown. Endless possibilities await that no one else has either discovered or found. And my goal for the class was in some way, to encourage others to do the same. Overall the first assignment was the most enjoyable of the bunch and I learned how to write about myself without running out of things to say for the most part. As a result of the assignment, I was also able to get a grasp of rhetorical sensibility. The use of tone, the use of sarcasm, help better my writing and improve how I articulate myself.
However, the next few assignments were in no way shape, or form as easy as the letter of introduction. It was a true glass view of what I was going to do in the world of engineering. The next assignment was the Lab Report Analysis. Throughout engineering, many engineers were forced to write about their experiences, studies as well as many other things. It’s a necessity if you want to be an engineer. Before going into this field, I didn’t realize all the stuff engineers were forced to do in this field so the Lab Report Analysis threw me off. During this assignment, I had to analyze a lab report and explain it in a 5-page essay. I’ve written lab reports for science classes in the past in high school but never before did I expect to have to analyze someone else’s thought process. It was a bit tricky. Our wonderful professor thought it would be, however, so she decided it would be best for us to write a first draft of the essay and then a final draft. Once we write our first draft we will be doing a Peer Review. This means that our classmates would be assisting us and giving us constructive criticism. But throughout the Peer Review process, I realized something.
I began to understand how many partners in the class think. It also improved my social skills because as our professor stated. Engineering is an incredibly social field. Something I wasn’t typically good at. I was able to give my partners nice feedback to assist them with their assignments while they did the same. They allowed me to practice more writing strategies such as planning, drafting, and editing. Being able to know what’s wrong with what you’re doing is a crucial part of being an engineer, otherwise, your entire work will fall apart and you will be left with absolutely nothing. This assignment also strengthened my ability to analyze data. Being able to understand what you are looking at can help you fix problems, as well as find something that can be even better than the current thing you are with.
The next two assignments I had to work on were the Technical Description and our Engineering Proposal/Presentation. For the Technical Description, we had to choose an item that we either find interesting or use in our everyday lives. I chose a mechanical pencil because I’ve been using it since 5th grade almost every single day of my life. The Mechanical Pencil has been around for many generations and centuries but I believe it truly is one of the greatest inventions ever made. This assignment made me understand what criteria a device needs to be able to fit to be beneficial to society. The mechanical pencil has a lot of features, such as the ability to not need sharpening and better handling. This allows for easier use. During the Engineering writing proposal, we had to come up with our invention. That’s what our technical description was mainly aimed at. To make us understand the fundamentals of what goes into a good invention. During the Proposal and presentation, we were assigned random group members. We had to discuss with each other about what we would eventually come up with.
In The world of engineering, this is an everyday task. Me and my group members after a long discussion came up with a portable laptop charger. This charger would be able to be charged itself and allow for longer laptop use anywhere. It could also be used infinitely as it had overcharge protection like most laptops do. This group assignment allowed me to collaborate with people I never knew I could. It’s like we were inventing something and having to show the world how truly revolutionary our idea is. The presentation was a lot of anxiety though but the protests made it less because we didn’t have to do them in person. Overall I have learned many skills. How to properly do APA format, cite sources, collaborate with peers, analyze data, understand what makes a device you’ve invented good, and how to give feedback to my peers. This class has been wonderful and I hope to learn as much as I did in this class in my other classes in the future.
