A reflection of my semester

How did my final English class hold up?

As far as I can tell this will be my final English course. I have always struggled with classes that require English skill such as grammar, spelling, reading and writing. I am sure I will make a few spelling or grammatical errors in this essay even with spell check. I have always gravitated towards math as it is my favorite subject when there are not large paragraphs for problems too read. But this in unavoidable in any English class so I expected a lot of reading. To my surprise there was not as much as I thought. At the very least when there was reading it was on topics I had interest in making it much easier. But that is just part of it as this is a writing course and there was a lot of writing. We wrote a lot for each assignment including this essay. But unlike other writing courses the writing was focused on useful things that we would need out in the real world. And even an assignment related to your field of study. In this essay I will cover all of the assignments we students were tasked with.

In the resume and cover letter assignment we learned how to properly create a cover letter, fill out a resume, and obtain information from a job posting. The cover letter is your introduction to the reader. This introduction covers some experiences that explain to the reader why you would be a good choice for the job. Each paragraph takes a key word chosen from the job posting and relates it to you, your school work and job history. The resume is a listing of your job and school experiences listed in order. The job posting being the last page was a screen shot or copy and pasting of the listing of the job posting you applied for.

The lab report was on the topic of rolling dice. We tasked with rolling 2 dice, recording our results, and reaching our own conclusions about the experiment. I rolled tow dice 100 times with two different programs. One was a Dungeons and Dragons dice rolling simulator and the other was some coding that simulated the two dice rolls. I had an belief that with a pair dice being rolled that the number seven would be the most likely result. This was because if one of the two dice rolled into a one then your results can range from 2 to 7. Similarly if one dice rolled a 6 than your results ranged from 7 to 12. No matter what the other dice roll is, seven is always possible. This was true only for the number seven and the results from both simulations matched with my belief. I explain this in the analysis portion of the assignment. I included bar charts in my assignment to show the results of the dice rolls. Aside from any anomalies which can happen with a lower number of dice rolls. The numbers closer to seven had the highest chances of being the outcome. The belief and the results from my experiment match with the peer reviewed research I had to find. As the research showed that the numbers closer to the middle were the outcome most often. Even what the dice had more than 6 sides and were rolled more than 100 times. The research is listed in the references and the coding I used for the dice rolls are listed in the appendix.

The next assignment was the group proposal. In this assignment teams were tasked with creating a student center. We had to pitch to the class our student center as if they were investors. We had to do research on other student centers and peer review articles related to our topic. In addition we needed to do a survey to learn what students wanted most in a student center. All of this information heavily influenced what our student center would look like. There were 3 floors including a basement and the roof. Each floor had a different purpose. The basement was for parking as our student center was built on top of the parking area and we did not want to force a relocation of it. Our first floor has a grand ballroom, café, diner and some supply stores. The second floor is the entertainment floor with a gaming room, movie theater, and music room. The third floor was more peaceful with meditation rooms, study rooms, wellness studio and art gallery. Our roof was used for solar panels, a garden, and a lounge area. Once all of the floors were decided on we had to do more research to earn how long would the construction take. We have too learn how much it would cost. Then justify that cost by explaining how it will increase the graduation rate and retention rates for the college. We then had to create a slide with pictures of what the student center would look like. This slide would be used at the end during our presentation.

The final assignment was the technical description. For this assignment we first needed to research a subject that relates to our major. I selected the satellite as I would like to work on big machinery and it relates to my major. I first did some research on the subject. Looking for information about the first satellite, what do satellites do, how do they work, and any other interesting information related to them. Once I learned about the first satellite Sputnik I also discover so scientists discussing how it motivated the United States to create NASA in order to keep up with Russia. I was able to put together the a list of components for the satellite and discover some of what they are used for. Most often they are used for GPS, weather, and scientific research. In addition I did not know that the word satellite is for any object that orbits around another body in space. Making it necessary that I clarify the technical description was referring to man made satellites. The last bit of information I included referred to escape velocity as this is needed in order to understand how satellites are launched into orbit. I was tasked with making a poster with pictures as references to the bullet points that would be on the poster. This was to be presented in class to the students.

We had a quest that tested us on all of the writing skills we were taught during the semester. The quest covered grammar, when to use commas, when to use the semicolon and colon, and how to separate or restructure a sentence. There were three extra credit assignments of witch two I was able participate in since the third was on a work day. The first extra credit assignment tasked us with talking about a favorite song or movie. I choose my favorite song Blow Me Away by Breaking Benjamin. I am not sure if it is nostalgia that keeps this song as a favorite. This song unlocked an entire genre of music for me and my favorite genre to this day. The second extra credit assignment was to write about our experience at a museum. We were given some options that were free or cheap as a student or New York resident. I was not interested in most of the options and the option I had the most interest in I was not able to figure out how to get reduced pricing. I chose the American Museum of Natural History. I went to every floor and checked our each part that the reduced price ticket allowed me to. These parts were ok as I have been to this museum as a kid and remember a lot of the exhibits. I most enjoyed the life sized recreations of animals. I was a little disappointed with the space area as the Big Bang experience looked cooler on the outside that it was on the inside. The best part about this assignment is the reminder that there are a lot of free or cheap experiences around the city that I should take advantage of.

This semester over all was useful. There were a lot of practical assignments that will be useful for me in the future. Knowing how to write a proper resume will always be valuable. We need to know the basics for standing out amongst the piles of resumes we are competing with. Knowing proper grammar and punctuation will help us look more professional. Just these two can improve our ability to get a job and keep a job. In addition learning how to work with a team and deal with different personality types can be helpful. We might be working on teams in our careers. I have not though as much about the audience and purpose when writing in the past. This shift in perspective I believe has improved my writing. I now know the value of thinking about the audience or reader and how it is always best to make reading easy for the reader. While also making your purpose clear when you are writing so the reader understands the story you are trying to tell. Learning APA style helps to make a more organized references section. With all of these lessons combined I should be an improved writer from here on into the future.