My First Semester of English Class: What has Writing About Driverless Cars Taught Me? With my first semester as a college student at Auburn University almost in the books, it has been quite an experience to say the least. I discovered what I what my major to be. I met lots of new people and made many friends. I learned how to work as a college student. I even learned how to stay up late and how to study (Calculus caused that to happen). My English class has also helped me in many ways. I have thoroughly enjoyed my first semester English class. English classes are usually something I dread. We are usually required to read page on page and answer questions that could easily go one way or another. Then we are required to write page after page of essays in the exact way a …show more content…
This type of essay was the only essay we really did throughout high school and that was with AP classes in both junior and senior year. We may have written one informational essay, but we certainly did not write a rhetorical essay. This has caused many of the essays that I have written and really this class in general to be a work in progress for me. A “learning as you go” mentality if you will. This has also made it really easy to see my progress. I have gotten better at using better and more complex word choice. My transitional phrases and paragraph structure has become much improved since the beginning of the semester although I feel that I have ways to go. I have also gotten significantly better at taking an idea and putting an entire essay around it. These essays have also been much longer than I am use to. Most essays were only one to three pages with five pages being a one-time thing, which also was a several month process in high school. So, this class has been very much compressed when comparing it to high school. Overall, I can say that my writing has become much improved when looking back at my high school writing
Throughout this semester we have had to write many types of essays. Although this is a college English class there is still room for improvement. I made much improvement during the semester of the class. I was able to identify my weaknesses. I learned how to make improvements to the areas I was having problems in. Although each essay we did was different I was able to begin with one essay and throughout the semester turn it into two other essays. I was able to change my style of writing to fit the type of audience I was working with. I will continue to work on my writing and keep improving it.
Regardless of all of these improvements, I know my writing is still far from perfect. My arguments still lack the emotional appeal that, if present, would make my audience consider my arguments a lot faster. My analysis still lack development because often times I just state what happens instead of explaining why. In general, I need to work on controlling my voice and tone throughout an entire essay, which can be fixed if I choose my words more carefully to make sure my diction is uniform. Despite all of this, I am satisfied with myself, I am satisfied with the ways my writing has changed, with the way my writing skills have grown. Why? Because I am learning, and I know that I will continue improving as long as I take chances.
When it came to the process of writing my first, second, and third essay’s, there was clear visual improvement that I have become a better writer in certain aspects. As for essay one, I tended to rely on my writing skills as a high school student rather than use the components of a successful college student essay. This was definite once I received the feedback given by ...
After taking this course, this has been a struggling journey. I did not find fun in this class due to the grade I have now as a result. My writing skills did not improve from high school, losing confidence in myself to create well-written, interesting papers. However, this class has given me ideas about new styles of writing. Having done these papers helped me to discern the qualifications to write a rhetorical analysis essay from a visual critique paper. Here is how my experience in College Writing went.
Weak skills that I began the class with have become strong and my strong skills have become stronger. Having the opportunity to write a variety of different essay styles has challenged me greatly to improve my writing techniques. Each essay I was required to write brought its own struggles for me. I had to draw on the information that was presented through the class as well as look to the textbook for guidance. To ensure I did well on each essay I thought about my topic, researched the topic, then began to outline what I wanted to write about. Finally, I would write the essay and submit a rough draft. English 102 has given me the skills and training I need to move on to other classes next semester that will require writing essays. I now have a confidence in my writing abilities that this class has given
Over the course of this semester I learned a lot about myself as a writer. This English 101 class has really allowed me to expand my essay structure and ways of thinking. This was my first college writing course and it has given me much more freedom when writing because in high school I felt limited and like what we were writing was not very important. In high school I would write essays to just to fulfill the required word or page count and to a degree I still feel like this but maybe that is why I am an engineering major but in this course I actually was able to express my ideas and for the first time really test the limits of my writing capabilities. I really enjoyed being able to incorporate my voice more in my essays and I believe that I developed my own personal style a bit from this. At the beginning of the semester my writing was quite choppy and there was plenty of room for improvement in the overall flow of my essays. Now, I use several different tactics such as outlining to create better connections between paragraphs. I believe I was able to move beyond many of the high school ways of writing and make general improvements to my essays.
This semester was my very first semester as a college student. Being the first, it was probably the semester I would learn the most in. I learned the expectations for writing that I will have to live up to for the next four years of my college career. Though my high school teachers were usually demanding because I was in the Honors English section throughout high school, writing in college has still ?raised the bar? for me. Also, in high school, we would have weeks to pick a topic, create a thesis, outline the paper, write the paper, and then revise the paper. In college, the time restraints are not quite as lenient. I?ve had to learn to manage my time and be more productive with what free moments I have. Strangely enough, I?ve found the college English experience to be much more rewarding and enjoyable than in high school.
In summary, I had an enjoyable time in my first college English class. I pushed myself as diligently as I could and learned much more than I thought I would. In addition to, my strengths grew stronger and my weaknesses improved as well. I acknowledge I still have some techniques and skills to work on; however, I am willing to put the time in and cannot wait to take English in the future. Writing is an everlasting skill that will be an enormous asset to me; in addition to my future classes, and my career as
I was never a person that liked to write essays. This semester I really enjoyed writing those essays and specially because I was learning new things while writing them. Some things I could do to improve my essay writing are not to wait till the last three or four days before I turn my essay in to start doing it. Another thing I will do is if I forget how to do something or about some rule in the common errors I made I will just go back to all the lessons I printed out to have as reference. I think those will help me allot. And one last thing I will do to improve my writing is to try my best not to confuse all those words I got confused. I will do my best to learn each word and its rule of where it goes so I won’t have the same mistakes I had this semester.
To think that my first semester of college will be over this friday makes me realize how fast time flies. The first few weeks of college were tough, tiring and full of anxiety. Being in a new environment, a different state and not knowing one single person was something that I did not prepare myself for. Throughout all of the tears and the frustrations, I had to constantly remind myself that I am at The University of Akron to gain an education and become a successful individual.
The greatest difficulty that I came across doing the first essay was retracing the past, retracing the sadness. Having to bring back sad memories that made my life terrible at the time. Doing the essay, I learned that I have gone through a lot of crap. I was sinking in quicksand and now I stand on the quicksand like it is rock solid. I am proud of myself. I was able to turn my life around and be the person that I am today. I might have the potential to be a good writer someday. People compliment on my writing skills every now and then when I write something long. That makes me feel like a real student. I say that because an old History teacher of mine used to tell kids to be students when they were not doing their work.
Through the last 13 weeks I have learned about whom I am and what makes me who I am. I have made some great friends not only my age but also older and younger than me. I have realized many things about myself that I never would have realized if I wouldn’t have came here. College is a whole new experience that you could never imagine unless you are there. It is nothing like you read or even that you watch on TV. It is completely different and you learn a lot about yourself as a person.
Through this semester, I believe that this is the best class I ever take, but on the other hand, this is the worst class I ever take. The reason why I believe this is the best class for me is because I have improved my writing skills a lot through English 1A. For example, I have improved my pre-writing skills so I can write much more easily when I really start writing. Furthermore, professor and students in this class are really nice, so I have gotten a lot of helps from them; their helps motivate me to keep enhancing and improving myself. However, this is the worst class for me because English 1A is the most challenging class for me since I still have many writing weakness.
My first impression of college English was writing, writing and even more writing. Boy, was it true. I was afraid of going to college, especially afraid to take college English. This is my first semester in college and I knew I was taking a risk by enrolling into the online version of college English. My college advisor advised me of how intensive the workload is compared to the class done in the classroom. Nevertheless, I put on my big girl pants and enrolled. Though the class was tough, I learned so much than I thought was possible. I learned the importance of writing and I feel if I continue to work on my writing skills, it will make me a better writer in the future.
The first day of class was absolutely not that bad as I thought it would be. The time that I picked was great its not to last but its not too early. It s just the right time to get to class. The classroom was as scorching like the desert. It is very hot in the class. It makes write in the class hard to do but that is something I guess I just have to deal with. Just like Columbia is around this time of year. The class also seems to have some interesting people in the class. There was a lot of dance and film majors there so I consider were bound to here some intense story’s.